Filming locations in Seoul

Visiting Seoul: a set-jetting guide. South Korea's electric capital is a city of stair-streets, palaces and neon, and it was the real geography behind Parasite, Bong Joon-ho's 2019 study of class that swept the Oscars. The film maps its rich and poor families onto the city's literal high and low ground, and a handful of those modest, lived-in spots can still be walked today in a single short stop.

The most striking is the Ahyeon-dong stairway, the steep stair-street the Kim family hurries down through the pouring rain, fleeing the hilltop mansion for their own half-basement far below. Climbing or descending it, you feel the film's whole upstairs-downstairs argument in your legs. It is a real residential staircase, free to walk, but home to actual neighbours, so visit quietly and by day.

At the foot of those steps sits the second piece of the scene: the little neighbourhood grocery, the Woori Supermarket, the corner shop glimpsed throughout the family's storyline. It is a working local shop, so the respectful way to visit is to go in and buy something, then be on your way. The two spots pair naturally into one quick stop, near Ahyeon and Gongdeok stations.

These are ordinary working neighbourhoods rather than tourist sights, which is exactly what makes them moving, so tread lightly and keep the residents in mind. The area around Mapo rewards lingering after dark, when the pojangmacha food tents fire up for a proper local night out, and the buzz of Hongdae is only a couple of subway stops away. Seoul's metro makes the whole circuit effortless.