Love in the Moonlight | Hwaseong Haenggung — Bongsudang Without a Studio Wall

People treat a temporary palace as a fortress footnote. The East Palace scenes were shot in the real inner hall. Hwaseong Haenggung sits inside Suwon's UNESCO fortress, at the eastern foot of Paldalsan. King Jeongjo built it as a residence when he left Seoul. In 2016 the first teaser for Love in the Moonlight was filmed on the square in front of Jungyangmun. The policy briefing that followed was blunt: the Donggungjeon scenes were not a set. They used Bongsudang, the innermost hall on the axis from Sinpungnu. You walk that axis now. Sinpungnu, Jwaikmun, Jungyangmun, Bongsudang — four buildings on one line. The court in front of Bongsudang is the same packed-earth rectangle the cameras faced. The walls of Hwaseong rise behind the roofs. A temporary palace is an honest name. Jeongjo used it when the capital was elsewhere. The drama used it the same way: a real throne room borrowed for a season, then handed back to the ticket office.