Gyeongsangbuk-do (Gyeongbuk) province has hosted roughly 300 film and drama productions over the past three years by running what amounts to a one-stop location-scouting service for producers — handling site discovery, negotiation, and permitting directly through provincial administration, according to an April 19 report from Gyeongbuk Maeil reporter Pi Hyun-jin. The most recent beneficiary is “21st Century Grand Prince Consort,” whose Prime Minister’s residence and National Assembly scenes were filmed in the actual forecourt and corridors of the Gyeongsangbuk-do provincial government building, using the structure’s own modern-monumental architecture as the backdrop.
Other locations across the province did more specific narrative work: an archery ground in Yecheon hosted the drama’s traditional-bow duel scenes, built around the lead characters’ psychological tension; Gyeongju’s Oreung tombs, a set of ancient royal burial mounds, lent quiet visual depth to the show’s romance scenes; and a palace-fire sequence in the first episode was staged at a purpose-built set in Mungyeong’s Maseong district, anchoring the show’s opening tension. The province has been actively expanding filming infrastructure around three major sets in Mungyeong — Saejae, Gaeun, and Maseong — while also lobbying for national-level management of filming locations as public infrastructure.
“21st Century Grand Prince Consort” joins a run of higher-profile Gyeongbuk-supported productions, including the 10-million-admission film “The Man Who Lives With the King” and Netflix’s “When Life Gives You Tangerines.” Park Chan-woo, head of Gyeongsangbuk-do’s culture, tourism, and sports bureau, told the paper the province intends to keep expanding administrative support specifically so production crews “can focus only on the work,” with an explicit goal of establishing Gyeongbuk as a core hub of Korea’s film and TV industry rather than a secondary location to Seoul.
Source: Pi Hyun-jin, Gyeongbuk Maeil, April 19, 2026.
