Head Over Heels filming locations: Where the ghosts whispered and the light returned

Scene from Head Over Heels | Image via: tvN
Scene from Head Over Heels | Image via: tvN

Some dramas tell stories, and some dramas merge them with the landscapes: Head Over Heels unfolds like a memory captured in light, shaped by wind, stone, and the hush of distant waves. It follows characters through rooms where they held their breath, streets that still carry their shadows, places that remember what words forgot. In Head Over Heels, each setting becomes a witness, holding fragments of longing, quiet joy, and unfinished goodbyes.

Filmed across distinct regions of South Korea, Head Over Heels maps emotion through terrain. Seoul brings the weight of the present, with schools, rooftops, cafés, and neon reflections framing the emotional pressure of daily life. Jeju Island opens to the uncanny, offering wide skies and shifting tides where memory twists into myth. And at Seopjikoji Coast, everything stills. The path curves above the sea like a final question: if love could be heard again, would it sound like this?

Scene from Head Over Heels | Image via: tvN
Scene from Head Over Heels | Image via: tvN

Seoul – The city of crossroads and unfinished stories

Before the ghosts, before the cliffside winds, Head Over Heels grounds itself in the thrum of Seoul. In narrow alleys and high-rise corridors, the story roots its emotional weight. Seoul is a city of noise and movement, but also of pause. Past mistakes flicker in convenience store lights, and the future hesitates at pedestrian crossings.

Mapo, with its youthful energy and creative heartbeat, frames the characters’ moments of vulnerability. Cafés tucked between buildings become quiet confessionals. Rooftops offer stolen seconds of honesty beneath the distant hum of traffic. Gangnam reflects the polished surfaces they are expected to maintain, even as something inside falters.

Each district in Head Over Heels marks a stage in their unraveling. The city stays grounded in the ordinary: school courtyards, stairwells, streets that have seen too many quiet goodbyes. What aches most is not what was said, but what was left behind in places they no longer visit. Seoul holds that weight without changing. It remains exactly as it was, even when everything else slips away.

Jeju Island – Where memory drifts and returns

The shift to Jeju is quiet, but absolute. The island carries a softness that unsettles rather than comforts. Wind moves differently here, spaces stretch wider, and time seems to fold in strange ways, not through fantasy but through how memory behaves when no one is watching.

Wide paths cut through green hills, volcanic stone meets sea foam, and behind the scenic calm, there is always the sense that something once happened and was never spoken of again. The locations chosen in Jeju avoid the tourist postcards, feeling like places someone left years ago and returned to by accident, unsure whether they are trespassing or being invited back.

The characters in Head Over Heels walk without urgency, hesitating near cliffs, lingering by trees, and standing still at the edge of fields. What matters is not only what they discover, but also what stays with them as they move. The silence in Jeju carries weight and holds memory like a tide that never fully recedes, shaped by the wind and the land that continues to wait while the stories of Head Over Heels unfold.

Seopjikoji Coast – A cliffside altar for unspoken love

Among all the locations in Head Over Heels, Seopjikoji feels the most exposed. The path curves close to the cliff’s edge, the ocean roars just below, and the sky seems lower than anywhere else. This is not a place for declarations. It holds what stays unsaid and lets it echo across the wind.

Here, Head Over Heels places some of its most intimate moments. A hand left hovering, eyes that almost meet, and footsteps that move in opposite directions without speeding up. The characters look out at the sea without seeking clarity. They are trying to become small enough to release what they once carried with both hands.

What rises from this setting in Head Over Heels is not resolution, but recognition. Seopjikoji gives form to the quiet force of surrender, where nothing breaks, yet something leaves. And in that stillness, something begins.

Other traces left behind in Head Over Heels

Beyond the urban silence and coastal gravity, Head Over Heels also weaves its story through locations shaped by memory and tradition. Several scenes of the drama were filmed at Yongin Daejanggeum Park and the Korean Folk Village, places often used in historical dramas where architecture holds the echo of older stories.

These settings offer a quiet layer of contrast for Head Over Heels. The spiritual thread in Seong‑ah’s path gains new weight in spaces built to preserve ritual and time. Arched gates, wooden pillars, and open courtyards add texture to moments of transition. Her presence becomes part of something that extends beyond her life. The past stays near, folded into every frame of Head Over Heels.

Where the schoolyard remembers

The school in Head Over Heels is more than a place of routine. It carries the first moments of closeness, hesitation, and longing. Filmed at Daejeon Girls’ Commercial High School, the location holds stillness in its courtyards, stairwells, and window views. What happened between two people remains attached to these spaces, not as memory alone, but as an imprint.

The bridge where promises returned

In Daejeon, a footbridge known as “Lovers’ Ojakgyo” becomes a turning point. Once a connection between communities, it now holds the emotional distance between people who once walked toward each other. When Seong‑ah and Gyeon‑woo meet there, the bridge reflects more than a reunion. It reflects the ongoing space between love and return.

Beneath golden trees, time bent

On the ginkgo-lined path in Asan, a quiet moment opens under golden leaves. The characters share a bike ride framed by slow light and filtered air. The trees form a tunnel of pause, letting their joy unfold in rhythm with the season. What they feel is carried forward by the wind, not needing explanation to take root.

Where gardens sheltered what could not be spoken

At the Garden of Morning Calm, blossoms bloom alongside silence. Seong‑ah walks through the soft light with someone she once loved, but the weight between them remains unspoken. The garden holds it. Every petal, every path, every reflection in still water carries the feeling of something that almost found voice.

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The edge of light at Naksan Beach

On a stretch of coastline near Jukdo, the sea receives what was never said. The farewell scene unfolds as morning begins, with the horizon stretching forward and back. Gyeon‑woo and Seong‑ah do not part with finality. They stand near the water and let something pass between them that neither could hold.

Coffee, arcade lights, and the pause between realities

In Icheon, everyday moments take shape. A café table. A retro arcade. A street corner after dark. These spaces carry no myth, no ritual, just the ease of being near each other. Laughter, tension, quiet warmth. Here, the story breathes without interruption. Presence becomes enough.

Art and neutrality between lives

At the White Block gallery, conversation floats in a space without anchors. Clean architecture, filtered light, open silence. The gallery becomes a pause in the story, a place where nothing is demanded, but something is acknowledged. What passes between two people here does not rush forward. It lingers. And in that pause, something shifts.

The love that faces the immensity

In Head Over Heels, Seong‑ah and Gyeon‑woo find peace in presence. In stillness beside each other, in the weight of a gaze, in moments where nothing is spoken and everything is felt. In a classroom that holds that quiet. In a path walked side by side, even as time slips away and the sky stretches without certainty.

These moments unfold in spaces touched by hesitation. A school gate. A quiet room. A wind-carved field. Each setting carries what cannot be said. The characters move through places that hold what overflows from them. Grief. Love. Memory. Fear. And because the story lets these places stay exactly as they are, the viewer can remain there too.

Scene from Head Oveeer Heels | Imagee via: Prime Video
Scene from Head Oveeer Heels | Imagee via: Prime Video

Scenery shaped by everything unfinished

Head Over Heels builds memory into space. A trail remembers a farewell. A cliff holds a missed confession. A rooftop still feels like waiting. Each setting becomes a fragment of something once shared. The story unfolds through position and distance, through footsteps and absence, through the way someone stands in a place and leaves a trace behind.

Even in the time jump to 2028, the surroundings in Head Over Heels remain marked. Gyeon‑woo returns with steadiness. Seong‑ah continues her path with clarity. The transformation lies not in what is said but in how they inhabit the world again. No symbol is forced, and no answer is given. What remains is a bench, a coastline, a quiet room. And in that quiet, something stays.

Edited by Beatrix Kondo