Descendants of the sun: A first in Korea

Plot story: The show mostly happens in a fictitious island abroad named Uruk where a Special Forces captain played by Song Joong-Ki is teared up between keeping the peace for its country & the world, and its love relation with an army surgeon played by Song Hye-Kyo. He often has to leave her to accomplish his soldier duties to save lives or go to mysterious missions.

Well, if you are into drama, you must have heard about this one. Indeed it is none other than the popular Descendants of the Sun. The 16 episode show started airing in February on Korean channel television. The first episode was already a triumph with 14% ratings and hasn’t stopped since then to increase to reach over 30%, with a majority of women as fans. But for those who didn’t watch the drama, you might wonder why it has become so popular. Let me explain you the reasons, the first one is that this drama is not like any drama, not enough explanation right?

Well it is the first drama to not follow the norm and to be entirely filmed before it begin airing on TV. Second reason is that after the beloved drama released in 2013, My Love from the Star, China wanted to restrain this kind of production to be shown to Chinese, so it restricted access to foreign drama on video websites.

But breaking with tradition, descendants of the sun was fully pre-produced to overpass this new guidelines and got aired simultaneously both in China and Korea. Lastly, the leading cast with lady Song Hye-Kyo, a famous actress , who grew along with the Korean wave and the male lead freshly out of its 2 years army duty, the popular actor Song Joong Ki. He got to play into the right drama and therefore became like Lee Min-Ho in 2009 and Kim Soo-Hyun in 2013, the beloved man of Korea.

To put it in a simpler way, it is its unique military feature who have seduced its audience. Indeed, it’s not fate, or hazard who reunites the characters, but war emergencies. This drama went so viral on internet with its famous scene, featuring the two characters meeting during a catastrophes emergency, that many people parodied it.

Apart from the amazing cast, the locations where descendants of the sun was shoot were also unusual.

It played a big part in the drama. When you watch it, you might think they filmed a lot of scene abroad. In reality, a lot of episode showcased beautiful and unexpected places of Korea. Here is a list of few filming sites:

Taebaek Hanbo coal mine

It is probably the most memorable location as most of the drama was filmed there. The set location was built on an old mine site, but was then torn down when it finished shooting in November. But with the huge popularity of the drama, the city where it is located has received many inquiries from tourist agencies and so Korea tourism organization and the city are looking into it to remake the set as it was for tourist purpose.

Teabaek Coal mine — Descendants of the sun

Zakynthos shipwreck

This is definitely the most iconic place in the drama. It’s a little piece of island settled in Greece. The hidden beach known as Agios Georgios, is now more popularly known for its sunken ship on its shores. The ship ended up back in 1983 when it was carrying contraband cigarettes. It ended up on the island and fell into neglect.

Samtan Art Mine

It is the place where the earthquake happened, the disaster site in the drama. It was filmed at Samtan Art Mine, an abandoned mine reconverted into an art museum.

Camp Greaves DMZ Experience Center

It was supposed to be the base of the soldiers when their mission ended. The base was actually the Camp Greaves DMZ Experience Center in Paju, Gyeonggi. It is only 2km away from the Demilitarized Zone.

At first used as a base camp for the US army for about 50 years. it was returned to the state in 2007. After the huge success of the drama, it is now taking visitors and make them visit the surroundings.

Dalkom cafe

This cafe is located in Incheon Songdo central Park. It is where the couple Moyeon ( Song Hye-Kyo), Yoo Si Jin (Song Joong-Ki) broke their relation in the drama. Now this cafe has tons of visitors waiting to sit on the spot as two main actors during the scene.