You may have already seen Taiwan before you ever arrived here.
Perhaps it was the glowing streets of Taipei in Lucy, the mountains and coastline standing in for 17th-century Japan in Martin Scorsese’s Silence, or the chaotic energy of a Taipei night market in Netflix’s Left-Handed Girl.
Taiwan has appeared in Hollywood movies, international streaming productions, and some of Asia’s most influential films and TV dramas.
What makes Taiwan filming locations so fun to visit is that most of them aren’t movie sets. They are real night markets, university campuses, old mountain towns, city streets, and coastal landscapes that you can still explore today.
If you’re planning a Taiwan private tour, many of these locations can easily be included in a regular Taiwan itinerary without turning your entire holiday into a movie-location tour.
Here are some of the most famous movies filmed in Taiwan and where you can find their real filming locations.
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Why Taiwan Works So Well as a Filming Location
Taiwan packs a surprising amount of scenery into a relatively small area.
Filmmakers can move from neon-lit Taipei streets to mountain towns, forests and dramatic coastlines without traveling very far.
That variety is why filming locations in Taiwan can look completely different from one movie to the next.
Taipei became part of the fast-paced world of Lucy, Taiwan’s mountains and coastline stood in for 17th-century Japan in Silence, and Netflix’s Left-Handed Girl brought the everyday energy of Tonghua Night Market straight onto the screen.
For travelers, the best part is that many Taiwan filming locations are still real places you can visit today, night markets, university campuses, old streets and coastal landscapes rather than closed movie sets.
Taiwan Filming Locations at a Glance
| Movie / Show | Filming Location | Area |
|---|---|---|
| Left-Handed Girl | Tonghua Night Market | Taipei |
| Lucy | Regent Taipei, Taipei 101, Yongle Market | Taipei |
| Life of Pi | Former Shuinan Airport, Taipei Zoo, Kenting | Taichung, Taipei & Pingtung |
| Silence | Ruifang, Pingxi, Gongliao & other landscapes | New Taipei & other regions |
| Light the Night | Tiaotong / Linsen North Road | Taipei |
| A City of Sadness | Jiufen | New Taipei |
| Someday or One Day | Record shop, school & local spots | Tainan |
| Meteor Garden | National Chung Cheng University | Chiayi |
| Skyscraper Live | Taipei 101 | Taipei |
From Taipei night markets to mountain towns and southern beaches, these Taiwan filming locations show just how many different sides of the island have made it onto the screen.
Famous Movies and TV Shows Filmed in Taiwan
From Taipei night markets to the coast of southern Taiwan, these filming locations in Taiwan are spread across very different parts of the island. Some are easy to visit during a Taipei city break, while others fit naturally into a longer Taiwan trip.
Many of the places featured in famous movies filmed in Taiwan are already popular attractions on their own. Knowing what was filmed there simply gives you one more reason to look a little closer.
🎥 Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩)
Much of Netflix’s Left-Handed Girl unfolds around Tonghua Night Market (通化夜市), officially known as Linjiang Street Night Market, bringing one of Taipei’s everyday neighborhoods directly onto the screen.
The film follows a mother and her two daughters as they start over in Taipei, with the family running a noodle stall inside the market.
What makes the location feel so natural is that the crew filmed inside the real operating market rather than rebuilding it on a set.
Director Shih-Ching Tsou had Tonghua in mind for the story years before filming began, and the small crew worked around the market’s normal evening crowds to keep that everyday Taipei feeling intact.
Today, visitors will still find:
● Narrow lanes packed with food stalls
● Small restaurants and local snack shops
● Scooters, vendors and apartment buildings pressed close together
● The same busy evening atmosphere that gives the film its energy
That makes Tonghua one of the easiest Netflix Taiwan filming locations to visit.
It is also one of the most convenient Taipei filming locations, with Taipei 101 and Xinyi nearby, so you can easily stop by for dinner after a day of sightseeing.
🎥 Lucy (露西)
If you have seen Lucy, you may already recognize more of Taipei than you think.
Luc Besson used the city as a major part of the film’s setting, making Lucy one of the best-known movies filmed in Taipei.
Scarlett Johansson moves through hotels, markets, busy streets and landmarks that are still part of everyday Taipei today.
Some of the best-known Lucy filming locations Taiwan fans can still visit include:
● Regent Taipei (台北晶華酒店)
● Taipei 101 (台北101)
● Yongle Market (永樂市場) in Dadaocheng (大稻埕)
● Taipei Railway Workshop (臺北機廠)
● Streets around Taipei and Taoyuan International Airport (桃園國際機場)
What makes these Taipei filming locations fun to visit is how easily they fit into a normal sightseeing day.
Taipei 101 is already on many first-time itineraries, while Yongle Market is easy to combine with Dadaocheng and Dihua Street.
If you want to connect several of these places in one day, a Custom Taipei Tour makes it easy to mix filming locations with Taipei’s usual highlights instead of planning a separate movie-themed route.
🎥 Life of Pi
Life of Pi may look like it was filmed in the middle of the Pacific, but some of its most famous ocean scenes were actually created in Taichung.
Director Ang Lee chose the former Shuinan Airport (水湳機場) as a major production base, where the crew built a huge wave tank to recreate everything from calm seas to violent storms.
Taichung later developed its film industry partly around the experience and technology left behind by the production.
But not everything was created inside a tank.
The production also filmed at Taipei Zoo, while the landscapes of Kenting in Pingtung brought real southern Taiwan scenery onto the screen. Baishawan (白沙灣) in Kenting was used for beach scenes and remains one of the easiest Life of Pi locations for travelers to visit today.
Key Life of Pi filming locations in Taiwan include:
● Former Shuinan Airport, Taichung — home of the giant wave tank used for the ocean sequences
● Taipei Zoo (台北市立動物園) — used during the Taiwan production
● Kenting National Park (墾丁國家公園) — tropical scenery in southern Taiwan
● Baishawan (白沙灣) — the white-sand beach featured in the film
For travelers exploring Taiwan filming locations, Kenting is the easiest real world connection to the movie.
You can walk along Baishawan, explore Pingtung’s tropical coastline, and see the landscapes that helped bring Life of Pi to the screen.
🎥 Silence (沉默)
Martin Scorsese’s Silence is one of the most surprising famous movies filmed in Taiwan.
Although the story takes place in 17th-century Japan, the production was filmed almost entirely in Taiwan. Mountains, rugged coastlines, forests and remote valleys were transformed into the film’s historical Japanese landscape.
Some of the most recognizable Taiwan filming locations from Silence are in New Taipei City:
● Teapot Mountain (茶壺山) in Ruifang
● Taoyuan Valley (桃源谷) in Gongliao
● Dahua Pothole Stones (大華壺穴) in Pingxi
● Mysterious Coast (神秘海岸) in Jinshan
● Tsanguangliao Trail (燦光寮古道) in Shuangxi
● Gengziping (焿子坪) in Wanli
New Taipei City alone provided 8 locations that appeared in the final film, with additional filming taking place around Taipei, Taichung and Hualien.
Several of the film’s New Taipei locations sit around the same northeastern mountain landscape as Jinguashi, where old mining sites, coastal views and hiking trails still define the area.
What makes these filming locations in Taiwan especially interesting is that they still feel wild and cinematic today.
For movie fans, Silence is a good reminder that some of the most dramatic Taiwan filming locations are nowhere near a studio—they are real mountains, trails and coastlines.
🎥 Light the Night (華燈初上)
Netflix’s Light the Night takes viewers into Tiaotong (條通), the network of narrow alleys around Linsen North Road known for its Japanese restaurants, bars and nightlife.
Set in 1988, the series follows Rose, Sue and the women working at the Japanese style nightclub Hikari. The neighborhood is more than just a backdrop the lights, small bars and hidden lanes help give the show its unmistakable old Taipei atmosphere.
Netflix has even described Tiaotong as almost another character in the series.
One of the easiest Taipei filming locations to recognize is the entrance of Hikari.
Exterior scenes were filmed at Sugar Bar on Linsen North Road, while many interior scenes were recreated separately for the production. Taipei City’s official cultural website also identifies Sugar Bar as the real entrance used in the drama.
📍 Tiaotong (條通) / Linsen North Road (林森北路), Zhongshan District, Taipei
Today, the area still has its maze of alleys, Japanese restaurants and late-night bars. For fans exploring Netflix Taiwan filming locations, it is one of the easiest places to experience on foot without needing a special tour or ticket.
Come in the evening and the connection becomes much easier to see.
🎥 A City of Sadness (悲情城市)
Long before Instagram made Jiufen famous, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s A City of Sadness helped put this old mining town back on the map.
Released in 1989, the film was shot on location in Jiufen (九份), using its steep stairways, hillside houses and misty mountain setting to tell a story rooted in Taiwan’s postwar history. It remains one of the most important famous movies filmed in Taiwan.
Today, many of the things that made Jiufen so cinematic are still easy to find:
● Jiufen Old Street (九份老街)
● Shuqi Road (豎崎路)
● Steep stone stairways and hillside houses
● Mountain and sea views around the old mining town
Among all the filming locations in Taiwan, Jiufen is one of the easiest to experience without searching for one exact camera angle. Simply walk through the old streets, stop at a tea house and let the town’s atmosphere do the rest.
You may also like our private Jiufen night tour.
🎥 Someday or One Day (想見你)
Much of Someday or One Day moves between the present day and 1998, and Tainan gives those earlier scenes much of their nostalgic feel.
Old neighborhoods, school grounds, record shops and local food stops appear throughout the story, making the city one of the most recognizable Taiwan filming locations connected to the series.
Some of the best-known filming locations include:
● 32 Record Shop (32唱片行) – filmed at Xiaobanlou (小半樓)
● Longquan Ice Shop (龍泉冰店) in Madou
● Fengnan High School (鳳南高中) – filmed at Fenghe Senior High School (鳳和高中)
● Yuguang Island (漁光島)
● Erliao Sunrise Pavilion (二寮觀日亭) in Zuozhen
The locations are spread across different parts of Tainan rather than one tourist district, which is part of the fun.
If you are already planning time in southern Taiwan, Tainan is easy to combine with these filming spots, local food and the city’s historic districts in the same trip.
🎥 Meteor Garden (流星花園)
For many Asian travelers, Meteor Garden needs almost no introduction.
The 2001 Taiwanese drama turned F4, Shan Cai and the fictional Ying De University into pop-culture icons across Asia and more than two decades later, fans still visit Taiwan looking for the real campus behind the series.
The most famous location is National Chung Cheng University (國立中正大學) in Minxiong, Chiayi. Its wide lawns, grand buildings and long campus roads became some of the most recognizable school scenes in the drama. Taiwan’s Central News Agency has also identified the university as one of the filming locations that helped make the campus famous.
But Ying De University was not filmed in just one place.
Other university scenes were filmed at:
📍 National Chung Cheng University (國立中正大學) in Minxiong, Chiayi — the most recognizable Ying De campus
📍 Tamkang University (淡江大學) in Tamsui — including the Wen-Tzu Art Center, where several Meteor Garden scenes were filmed
📍 Kainan University (開南大學) in Taoyuan — used for additional exterior scenes
Tamkang University even reported that international Meteor Garden fans later visited the campus specifically to see the real filming spots used by F4.
That makes Meteor Garden one of the most nostalgic Taiwan filming locations on this list. You are not visiting a recreated set the campuses are still real universities in everyday use.
For travelers, National Chung Cheng University is the easiest one to build into a Chiayi trip, especially if you are continuing toward Alishan.
🎥 Skyscraper Live – Alex Honnold Free Solos Taipei 101
This one is a little different from the movies and dramas on this list.
Were you one of the people watching Alex Honnold from the streets around Taipei 101, or did you catch the climb live on Netflix?
In January 2026, legendary climber Alex Honnold turned Taipei 101 (台北101) into the setting for Netflix’s Skyscraper Live, climbing the outside of the 508-meter tower without ropes or safety gear.
After bad weather delayed the original schedule, Honnold completed the free solo on January 25, 2026, reaching the top in about 91 minutes as the climb was broadcast live around the world.
📍 Taipei 101, Xinyi District, Taipei
Unlike most Netflix Taiwan filming locations, there is no movie set to search for here—the building itself was the entire stage.
For travelers visiting Taipei today, it gives an already famous landmark a very recent screen connection. Head up to the observatory, look down over Xinyi, and remember that Honnold reached the top from the outside.
Definitely use the elevator.
Filming Locations in Taiwan Are Not Movie Sets
One of the best things about exploring filming locations in Taiwan is how normal they still feel.
There are usually no giant movie signs, ticket booths or recreated sets waiting for fans. Instead, you might find yourself eating at a working night market, walking through a university campus or climbing the same mountain trail that appeared on screen.
That is exactly what makes these Taiwan filming locations fun to visit.
📍 Tonghua Night Market is still packed with people looking for dinner.
📍 National Chung Cheng University is still a real university.
📍 Jiufen is still a mountain town full of tea houses and narrow streets.
📍 Taipei 101 is still one of the busiest landmarks in the city.
You are not really stepping onto a movie set.
You are stepping into the real place that filmmakers chose in the first place.
This makes visiting Taiwan filming locations feel less like a tour and more like discovery.
How Travelers Actually Visit Filming Locations in Taiwan
The nice thing about filming locations in Taiwan is that you usually do not need to plan a separate movie-themed trip.
Most travelers visit them in one of these ways:
1️⃣ You Find Them While Sightseeing
Sometimes you are already exploring Taipei, Jiufen or Tainan and suddenly realize the place looks familiar.
That is part of the fun.
2️⃣ They’re Easy to Include in Your Taiwan Plans
Places like Jiufen, Taipei 101, Tonghua Night Market and Tainan are already popular travel stops. Their film connections simply give you another reason to visit.
A flexible Taiwan private tour also makes it easy to include a few Taiwan filming locations without building the entire trip around movies.
3️⃣ You Pick One or Two Favorites
You do not need to visit every location on this list.
Maybe Meteor Garden brings you to Chiayi, Left-Handed Girl sends you to Tonghua Night Market, Lucy makes Taipei feel a little more cinematic, or A City of Sadness gives you one more reason to spend an evening in Jiufen.
See the places that mean something to you, then keep exploring Taiwan.
See Taiwan Beyond the Screen
Movies can introduce you to a place.
But Taiwan is even better experienced away from the screen.
Walk through Jiufen after sunset. Eat your way through the kind of night market seen in Left-Handed Girl. Wander through Taipei’s old neighborhoods. Follow mountain roads toward Chiayi and Tainan.
You may recognize a scene along the way.
Or you may simply discover why filmmakers keep coming back to Taiwan.
At Justaiwantour, we design private tours in Taiwan around each traveler’s interests, whether that means famous filming locations, food, history, mountains, photography, or a little of everything.
If you want to see several sides of the island in one trip, our 4-Day Taiwan Private Tour is an easy place to start.
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Tell us which movie or Taiwan drama first put Taiwan on your travel list, and we’ll help you turn it into a real journey.
See the Scene, Respect the Place
Most Taiwan filming locations are still real places used by locals every day.
So when you visit:
📍 Be mindful of residents, students and local businesses
📸 Do not block streets, shop entrances or campus paths for photos
🏛️ Follow temple, campus and photography rules
🚫 Stay out of private or restricted areas
🤫 Keep noise down in residential neighborhoods
The best movie-location visits are the ones where you get the photo, enjoy the connection, and leave the place exactly as you found it.
FAQ: Movies Filmed in Taiwan
What famous movies were filmed in Taiwan?
International movies filmed partly or entirely in Taiwan include Lucy, Life of Pi and Martin Scorsese’s Silence. Taiwan has also been the setting for internationally recognized Taiwanese productions such as A City of Sadness, Left-Handed Girl, Someday or One Day and Meteor Garden.
Was Life of Pi filmed in Taiwan?
Yes. Much of Life of Pi was produced in Taiwan. A major water tank was constructed in Taichung for the movie’s ocean sequences, and Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture has noted that much of the production took place in Taichung.
What Hollywood movies were filmed in Taiwan?
Two of the best-known examples are Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson, and Martin Scorsese’s Silence. Ang Lee’s Life of Pi also carried out a significant part of its production in Taiwan.
What movies were filmed in Taipei?
Movies filmed in Taipei include Lucy and Left-Handed Girl, while many Taiwanese movies have also used the capital’s streets, neighborhoods and buildings as locations. Taipei has an especially strong film history because modern streets, historic neighborhoods, mountains and coastlines can all be reached within a relatively compact area.
Where was Left-Handed Girl filmed?
Left-Handed Girl was filmed in Taipei, with Tonghua Night Market playing an especially important role. Director Shih-Ching Tsou has described the real night market as central to the movie’s identity.
Was Silence filmed in Taiwan?
Yes. Martin Scorsese’s Silence was filmed in Taiwan, including locations in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taichung and Hualien. Several New Taipei landscapes can still be visited today.
Where was Meteor Garden filmed in Taiwan?
One of Meteor Garden’s best-known filming locations is National Chung Cheng University in Chiayi County, which represented the elite university attended by the series’ characters.
Can tourists visit filming locations in Taiwan?
Yes. Many Taiwan filming locations are ordinary tourist destinations, markets, streets and public spaces. Jiufen, Tonghua Night Market, central Taipei and many of the landscapes used in Silence can be incorporated into a regular Taiwan sightseeing itinerary.