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A Taxi Driver is the story of an ordinary man who drives into history by accident. Man-seop, a Seoul taxi driver chasing a fare, takes a German journalist to Gwangju in May 1980 and finds a city cut off from the outside world, where citizens are being killed for demanding democracy. The film follows his one night and day in the city, and his decision to turn back and help. Two of its real filming places survive as visitable stops: a closed hospital in Gwangju where the wounded were brought, and a quiet station area in Boryeong. The street everyone remembers, Geumnam-ro, is a different kind of place in this guide — a recreation, explained rather than visited.
The hospital is the film’s moral center. Director Jang Hoon told Cine21 that the hospital scenes were filmed at Seonam University Hospital in Gwangju, the building where those who died in May 1980 had been kept, and which was then closed and awaiting a decision on its future use. Xports News identifies the same building as Seonam Hospital in Bullo-dong, formerly the Gwangju Red Cross Hospital, and places the film’s wounded there, with Man-seop meeting Gwangju’s taxi drivers at the hospital’s back gate. Go to look, not to enter: both 2017 sources describe the building as closed to the public, and this guide presents it as an exterior-only stop. Stand outside it and the film’s hospital scenes gain their weight — this was a real building that held real dead, before it held actors.
Gwangju Tourism lists the building as May 18 Democratic Movement Historical Site No. 11, where doctors and nurses treated wounded people and citizen guard members devotedly. When blood ran short, it says, people — even workers from neighbouring bars and clubs — donated blood.
Boryeong: the Cheongso Station area
The Cheongso Station area, in Boryeong, is the guide’s quieter stop. Two independent original press sources name it as a filming place for the film, and this guide claims the station area rather than a single building, with no scene claimed beyond what those sources state. It is the guide’s quieter stop: a small country station area, worth a pause on a longer Gwangju trip rather than a destination on its own.
The street that is not a stop: Geumnam-ro
The film’s most famous street is the one place in this guide you cannot visit as a filming location. Director Jang Hoon told the Korean Film Archive that the Geumnam-ro sequences were recreated at near-real width and length, with the rest filled in by computer graphics, and that the set no longer exists. News Tomato reports the same approach from the production side: with no place left that kept a 1980s atmosphere, the crew scouted for five months across more than nine regions, had the art team set the streets, and finished the picture with computer graphics. The real Geumnam-ro in Gwangju is still worth walking as history — it is the street where the events happened — but the street you see in the film is a reconstruction, and this guide says so plainly rather than sending you to look for a set that is gone. Jeonil Building 245, Chonnam National University’s main gate and 5·18 Democracy Square are in the same position: historic places the film depicts, not filming locations on the evidence used here, so they are mentioned here and not listed as stops.
Gwangju Tourism calls Geumnam-ro the street of uprising, people and democracy. It records the first student demonstration there on May 18, crowds gathering from May 19, and more than 100 vehicles, including taxis, in a demonstration on the evening of May 20.
Getting there
The two stops sit in different regions, so treat them as two legs, not one walk. For Gwangju, take a train from Yongsan to Gwangju-Songjeong; the journey takes about 1 hr 40 min–3 hr 20 min depending on the train, and you can check the official timetable on Korail’s guide page. For Boryeong, no verified route with numbers is stated here — check the same official timetable guide and local options on arrival. For more Korean film places, see 1987’s Mokpo and Sandglass across Korea.
How we checked
Both stops were checked on Oct 27, 2026 against two independent original sources each: the hospital against Cine21’s 2017 director interview and Xports News’s 2017 on-site filming-trail report, and the Cheongso Station area against Seoul Shinmun (2019) and Pressian (2022). Scene details appear only where a cited source states them, and no episode numbers apply to a film. The Geumnam-ro account rests on the Korean Film Archive interview and News Tomato’s 2017 review. Our methodology explains how each label is earned.
Sources
- Cine21: Director Jang Hoon interview (Aug 3, 2017)
- Xports News: Following A Taxi Driver’s filming trail (Aug 30, 2017)
- Seoul Shinmun (Sep 16, 2019)
- Pressian (Sep 19, 2022)
- Korean Film Archive: A Taxi Driver interview
- News Tomato: A Taxi Driver review (Jul 11, 2017)
- Gwangju Tourism: Former Red Cross Hospital (Site No. 11)
- Gwangju Tourism: Geumnam-ro Area (Site No. 4)
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