When Movies and TV Pretend They Are Somewhere Else

As a longtime fan of M*A*S*H, I have always noticed that the “Korean” hills in the show look a lot like Southern California. That is not an accident. Hollywood has a long history of filming in one place while claiming the story is happening somewhere completely different. Sometimes it works. Other times, anyone who knows the real location can spot the ruse in seconds.

The Korean War That Looked Like Malibu

MA*SH – Korea, by way of California

The classic TV series M*A*S*H is set at a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War, but the production was not anywhere near Korea. Most outdoor scenes were filmed on a former 20th Century Fox movie ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains, land that later became Malibu Creek State Park in Southern California. Rolling golden hills, oak trees, and dry chaparral stand in for the terrain around Uijeongbu, South Korea, with varying success.

For viewers who grew up around Southern California, the landscape is instantly familiar. Winter episodes relied on fake snow and careful framing to suggest a colder climate, yet the underlying terrain still looks much more like Malibu than the Korean Peninsula.

Vietnam Movies That Were Not Shot in Vietnam

Platoon – Vietnam in the Philippines

Oliver Stone based Platoon on his own experiences in the Vietnam War, yet the film was shot in the Philippines rather than Vietnam. The production used jungle locations on the island of Luzon and other nearby areas to mimic Da Nang and the surrounding Vietnamese countryside. The climate and dense forest helped sell the illusion, but the soil and vegetation are not a perfect match if you compare them to actual Vietnam.

Interestingly, the crew even imported soil of the “right” color so that the ground would resemble what Stone remembered from his time in Vietnam, which shows how far productions will go to adjust a stand-in location to match the story’s setting.

The American West That Was Really Europe

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – The Wild West in Spain

Sergio Leone’s famous Western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is set in the American Southwest during the Civil War, yet most of the film was shot in Spain. The Tabernas Desert in Almería and the high plains near Burgos doubled for New Mexico and Texas. The wide open spaces and rocky hills look enough like the American West that many viewers never noticed.

If you watch closely, though, the mixture of vegetation and the style of some buildings can feel more Mediterranean than Southwestern United States. The same Spanish desert region has been reused in many “American” Westerns, which makes it a movie-world stand-in for an entire continent.

Cold War Drama Filmed in the American Rockies

Rocky IV – “Siberia” in Wyoming

In Rocky IV, Rocky Balboa heads to the Soviet Union to train in a desolate Siberian landscape. On screen, he chops wood, runs through snow, and trudges past towering mountains that are meant to be somewhere behind the Iron Curtain. In reality, those training montages were filmed around Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, along with additional snowy locations in Norway.

The towering Tetons and open snowy fields do a convincing job as Siberia if you are not familiar with the area. For locals or anyone who has visited, however, it is clearly the American Rockies wearing a Russian costume.

When Miami Was Los Angeles

Scarface – Miami set, California shot

Brian De Palma’s 1983 version of Scarface is famous for its neon-drenched Miami setting. The story follows Tony Montana as he climbs through the criminal underworld of Florida and beyond. While some key scenes were filmed in and around Miami, many others were shot in Los Angeles. Sets and locations in downtown LA and nearby neighborhoods were dressed to resemble “Little Havana” and other Miami districts.

Fans have since tracked down specific corners of Los Angeles that appear in the film, including recreated street scenes and an internment camp built beneath freeway overpasses. Anyone who knows both cities can spot telltale differences in architecture and street layout, even when palm trees and set dressing do their best to blur the lines.

San Francisco That Was Mostly Somewhere Else

Monk – Bay Area story, SoCal and Canada reality

The series Monk is firmly set in San Francisco, complete with cable cars, fog, and steep streets. Establishing shots really do show Bay Area landmarks, and a few episodes used actual San Francisco locations. The bulk of the show, however, was filmed elsewhere.

The pilot was shot largely in Vancouver, British Columbia, with some location work in San Francisco. Most of the first season used locations around Toronto. Later seasons moved production to the Los Angeles area, where sets and local neighborhoods filled in for Monk’s apartment, police offices, and various San Francisco streets. To viewers familiar with the real city grid, broad suburban streets and certain background hills are clear indicators that the crew was not on the Bay.

A Tropical Island That Was Nearly Every Place on Earth

Lost – One island that stood in for many countries

The television series Lost takes place on a mysterious island in the South Pacific, and that island was filmed almost entirely on Oahu in Hawaii. That part makes sense. The surprising twist is that many flashback and flash-forward scenes set all over the world were also filmed on Oahu.

Honolulu and surrounding areas doubled for locations in California, New York, London, South Korea, Iraq, Nigeria, and more. With selective framing, different neighborhoods, and careful set dressing, the same island was reused again and again as a global backlot. For Hawaiians, it is often obvious that a “Berlin” alley or “Los Angeles” street is really a familiar corner of their own city.

Cozy Small Towns That Are Quietly Canadian

Hallmark Christmas movies and their Canadian stand-ins

Many modern made-for-TV holiday movies, particularly those from Hallmark, are set in fictional small towns somewhere in the United States. In practice, a large number of these productions are filmed in Canada, especially around Vancouver, Victoria, and other parts of British Columbia, as well as cities in Ontario and Manitoba.

Tax incentives, flexible local crews, and picture-perfect main streets make these Canadian communities ideal stand-ins for generic “American” holiday towns. Once you realize how often the same downtowns and snowy streets appear across different titles, it becomes a game to spot the reused storefronts and parks.

Why Productions Fake Locations

Filming in the real place that a story describes is often more difficult than it sounds. Some of the reasons productions choose stand-in locations include:

Budget and logistics: Shooting close to existing studios and crew can be far cheaper than moving an entire production overseas.
Tax incentives: Regions with generous film subsidies, such as parts of Canada or specific U.S. states, draw productions that will rewrite the story’s geography to match the budget.
Weather and predictability: Southern California and Hawaii offer relatively stable climates, which make filming schedules easier than in harsher or more variable environments.
Existing sets and infrastructure: Established backlots, soundstages, and “movie ranches” already have many of the pieces a show might need, from towns to forests.
Politics and access: Some countries will not allow certain types of filming, so producers find similar-looking substitutes instead.

Why Viewers Notice

Decades ago, most viewers simply accepted whatever the screen showed them. Today, fans are far more likely to recognize an out-of-place mountain range or a familiar downtown. High resolution screens reveal details of trees, buildings, and even license plates that used to blur together. Many of us also travel more and can instantly recognize a landmark that is supposed to be “somewhere else.”

Online communities have turned this into a kind of sport. People compare screenshots to Google Maps, post side-by-side photos of filming locations and their fictional identities, and catalog every appearance of certain roads, beaches, and rock formations.

When It Works Anyway

Despite all the mismatches, a lot of these stand-in locations still work on screen. M*A*S*H sold its Korean setting to millions of viewers for over a decade, even if the hills were actually Malibu. Spanish deserts became the American West, and the forests of the Philippines convincingly passed for Vietnam. The visual language of cinema, along with good writing and acting, can be enough to make audiences accept almost any location as “real” within the story.

For anyone who enjoys noticing these details, though, it can be fun to watch a favorite movie or show and ask a simple question: “Where are we supposed to be, and where were they really?”

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