Culture Compass

KPop Demon Hunters Seoul Locations: What’s Real and What’s Fictional?

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KPop Demon Hunters is animated, so nothing in it was filmed in Seoul, but its city draws on real Seoul landmarks you can visit. Two important screen settings are exceptions: the stadium under N Seoul Tower is fictional, and HUNTR/X’s tower is invented.

Tiled roofs and traditional hanok houses on a sloping Bukchon street
Bukchon’s sloping hanok-lined lane, photographed at blue hour. Check current visitor-hour restrictions before going. Photo: Basile Morin / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized and converted to WebP.

Below are the places the film draws on, what each one is like in reality, and the local rules worth knowing before you go.

On this page: Scene-to-place list · Bukchon visiting rules · Fictional settings · Plan your visit

Real, redesigned or invented?

Every location here falls into one of three groups. A real landmark is a place you can find on a map. A redesigned setting starts from a real place but changes it on screen. An invented space has no address at all. Keeping those apart is the difference between a good day out and a search for a doorway that was never there.

The places and their scenes

Netflix’s locations guide links these real places to the film:

  • Bukchon Hanok Village: Rumi and Jinu meet; later, “Free”.
  • Gyeongbokgung Palace: Jinu’s backstory.
  • Naksan Park: a second meeting.
  • Myeongdong: the “Soda Pop” street.
  • Coex K-Pop Square: the giant screen.
  • Cheongdam Bridge: the subway-train fight.
  • Seoul Olympic Stadium: the opening concert.
  • Lotte World Tower: the position of the HUNTR/X home.
  • N Seoul Tower: the hill above the fictional stadium.

Bukchon Hanok Village

Bukchon is a lived-in neighborhood, not a theme park. Visit Seoul describes it as a residential village of traditional hanok houses between Gyeongbokgung and Changdeokgung palaces, and asks visitors to practice “silent tourism”: keep noise down, keep groups small, and do not photograph or film inside homes even when doors are open.

Traditional hanok rooflines in Bukchon under a blue sky
Traditional rooflines in Bukchon. Photo: Basile Morin / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized and converted to WebP.

The film’s rooftop scenes are for watching. In reality the tiled roofs belong to people’s houses, and you see them from the public lanes.

The Red Zone rule

The Seoul Metropolitan Government restricts sightseeing in one designated area, the Red Zone on Bukchon-ro 11-gil. There, tourist visits are not allowed from 5 p.m. to 10 a.m., with a KRW 100,000 fine enforced since March 1, 2025. The same notice asks visitors to treat Sunday as a rest day for the alleyways. That is a request, separate from the Red Zone hours, which apply only inside the marked zone.

A practical consequence: atmospheric dusk photos of Bukchon online may have been taken at times when sightseeing in the Red Zone is now not permitted. Plan a daytime walk instead of trying to recreate them.

Gyeongbokgung Palace

The royal palace is a managed heritage site with set viewing hours, guided tours and temporary area closures. The Royal Palaces and Tombs Center posts current notices; check them before you go.

Geunjeongjeon Hall and its courtyard at Gyeongbokgung Palace
Geunjeongjeon and its broad palace courtyard. Photo: Basile Morin / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized and converted to WebP.

What you can compare on the ground is architecture: the main hall’s double roof, the stone court in front of it and the scale of the palace against the mountains behind.

Interior architectural view of Geunjeongjeon Hall at Gyeongbokgung
The painted interior of Geunjeongjeon at Gyeongbokgung Palace. Photo: Basile Morin / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized and converted to WebP.

The throne hall interior above is real palace architecture. The film’s palace rooms are drawn for the story, so treat it as context rather than a match.

Naksan Park and the city wall

Naksan Park runs along a stretch of the old Seoul City Wall. Visit Seoul lists the park as free and open 24 hours, with a walking trail of about 2 km along the wall from Hyehwamun to Heunginjimun, the city’s East Gate. Its exhibition hall keeps separate daytime hours.

Seoul City Wall in the Naksan area
Seoul City Wall in the Naksan area. Photo: Korea.net / Korean Culture and Information Service (Jeon Han) / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0. Resized and converted to WebP.

The film compresses the view into one romantic frame. In reality you pick a stretch of wall and walk it on a low hill, so wear shoes for slopes.

Myeongdong and Coex: two kinds of performance space

These are two very different real places. In Myeongdong, look for the paved area in front of Myeongdong Theater.

Myeongdong Theater frontage in Seoul
Myeongdong Theater’s street-facing facade. Photo: Exj / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized and converted to WebP.

Coex K-Pop Square, in Gangnam, is a public plaza beneath the large LED media facade of Coex Artium, according to Visit Seoul, which notes its 3D illusion artwork “WAVE”. Because it is a public plaza, seeing the screen needs no ticket. What plays on it on a given day is up to its operator, not the film.

Cheongdam Bridge

Cheongdam Bridge carries the subway across the Han River. Ride across in a carriage, or look at it from the riverbank.

Underside of Cheongdam Bridge in Seoul, with a subway train on its lower deck
A subway train on the lower deck of Cheongdam Bridge, seen from below. Photo: Motoko C. K. / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0. Resized and converted to WebP.

Seoul Olympic Stadium

The Olympic Stadium at Jamsil is real. The city’s sports facilities office records construction from 1976 to 1984; the stadium hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Seoul Olympic Stadium exterior with Olympic rings in an archival photograph
An archival exterior of Seoul Olympic Stadium; this image does not show current construction conditions. Photo: Kiyong2 / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized and converted to WebP.

Check its remodeling status before including it. The same office lists the main stadium as unavailable for rental from November 2023 to December 2026 because of remodeling, a period it says may change with the construction schedule. A rental closure does not by itself tell you which surrounding public spaces are open.

The two settings you cannot visit

The stadium under N Seoul Tower

Only the tower on Namsan is real. N Seoul Tower’s FAQ says the observatory needs no reservation, sells same-day tickets, and that operations can be suspended for weather or when vehicle access to Namsan is restricted.

N Seoul Tower silhouetted against clouds at sunset
N Seoul Tower silhouetted at sunset. Photo: Rtflakfizer / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized and converted to WebP.

Go for the tower and the city view.

The HUNTR/X tower

Art director Celine Kim, quoted by Netflix, said the band’s home sits where Lotte World Tower is on the film’s map; without rights to the real tower, she designed a fictional, taller one. A Visit Seoul feature goes further and calls Lotte World Tower the real-world model.

Lotte World Tower rising beyond the Han River and Cheongdam Bridge
Lotte World Tower across the Han River. Photo: Ox1997cow / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0. Resized and converted to WebP.

The real tower’s observatory, Seoul Sky, sits at about 500 meters on floors 117 to 123, according to Visit Seoul. It is a view, not the band’s apartment.

Planning by what you want to see

  • Traditional streets and roofs, north of the Han River: Bukchon in daytime, then Gyeongbokgung if time allows. The two sit side by side in Jongno-gu.
  • Walls and skyline: Naksan Park, or the view of N Seoul Tower from across the city.
  • The contemporary, pop-concert city: Myeongdong, north of the river in central Seoul, and Coex K-Pop Square and the Lotte World Tower area, south of the river.
  • Check first: the Jamsil stadium, while remodeling continues.

These are groupings, not timed routes; check a live transit app between the exact stops you choose. For who voices and sings each member, see our HUNTR/X voice and singer guide and the Saja Boys guide.

Sources checked October 29, 2026 (KST): Netflix’s locations guide, Seoul Metropolitan Government and Seoul sports facilities office pages, Visit Seoul, the Royal Palaces and Tombs Center and N Seoul Tower’s FAQ. This is a research-based guide, not a visit report.