One of the fan pages of "Descendants of the Sun" actor Song Joong-ki revealed on Friday that the restoration of the sites where the 16-episode Korean Hallyu was filmed faces budget issues.
The Facebook fan page cited an article by Yonhap News Agency on Wednesday that the Tourism Ministry and the city of Taebaek in Gangwon Province are having a struggle over budget after the city government requested the ministry for 2 billion won ($1.71). The amount is to restore the set of “Descendants of the Sun” to promote the site as a tourist attraction.
In March, Kim Yeon-shik, mayor of Taebaek, entered into a partnership with Jung Chang-soo, head of the Korea Tourism Organization, to come up with plans to promote the site as tourist attraction following the unprecedented popularity of the drama in South Korea and China. Even Korean President Park Geun-hye credited the show with promoting Korean culture in the world stage.
However, there is so far no progress in the restoration of the set because of the budget request disapproval. In rejecting the request, the ministry said that Taebaek in not accessible from the Seoul metropolitan area. The ministry also reportedly doubts the long-term popularity of “Descendants of the Sun” which ended in mid-April, so it is hesitant to allocated funds for restoration of the site since the project’s popularity is hard to ensure.
The set was built on an unused coal mine in a remote Taebaek mountain range which about 1,300 tourists visited from May 5 to 8, the Children’s Day long weekend. According to Korea Times, the main outdoor set in Taebaek was demolished in November after the shooting ended, but many other shooting locations in the area are still in place. These include the Samtan Art Mine, an art complex, and the Sabuk mine cultural village.
Uruk, the fictional country where there was a war, was shot in Camp Greaves DMZ Experience Center in Paju-si, Gyeonggo-do. It is about 2 kilometers from the southern boundary line of South Korea of the Demilitarized Zone. After the US Armed Forces withdrew from the area, the camp was turned into a youth hostel and opened to the public in 2013.