Dong Yi|Yongin Daejanggeum Park Palace Court — The Set Hall That Stood In for Changdeokgung

From the market street the ground rises into a courtyard that the park labels Injeongjeon. It is not the real throne hall in Seoul. Namuwiki notes that the building began as a Manwoldae set for Shin Don and was later dressed as a Joseon audience hall: late-Joseon stylobate, earlier bracketing, enough height for a king to keep walking.

Dong Yi needed that height. Ji Jin-hee’s Sukjong rules from a court that has to look continuous across sixty Monday nights. The cameras could not live inside UNESCO Changdeokgung. They lived here, on MBC land at 25 Yongcheon-ro 330beon-gil in Baegam-myeon, where a king could rehearse an entrance without closing a palace to the public.

Stand on the courtyard stones. The hall in front of you is the one tour buses photograph. Bopyeongjeon sits on the same lot. The Korea Herald still points visitors to this platform as the place where generations of screen kings took care of state affairs. For Dong Yi the affairs were quieter: a petition, a glance, a woman who was not supposed to be in the frame.

You leave the courtyard the way the extras did, down toward the market again. The real Injeongjeon is an hour north. This one is the hall that made the walk possible.