Mishima's The Temple of the Golden Pavilion is set in Kyoto at Kinkaku-ji, with earlier scenes near Maizuru and Cape Nariu, at Nanzen-ji and on the Sea of Japan coast at Yura.
The novel is loosely based on the burning of the Golden Pavilion by a young Buddhist acolyte in 1950. This route follows the narrator Mizoguchi from his childhood on the north coast to the night he sets the temple alight. Three stops are approximate and two are unpinned.
The Ashikaga shoguns ruled Japan from Kyoto from 1336 to 1573, and their temples survive as Tenryū-ji, Shōkoku-ji, Kinkaku-ji (the Golden Pavilion), Ryōan-ji and Ginkaku-ji (the Silver Pavilion).
The route follows the dynasty from Ashikaga Takauji's memorial temple for Emperor Go-Daigo, through Yoshimitsu's Flower Palace and golden villa, to the Ōnin War and Yoshimasa's unfinished silver pavilion. The Flower Palace itself is gone; only a stone marker commemorates it.
«Hero» (2002), de Zhang Yimou, se rodó en los estudios Hengdian World Studios, en Zhejiang, cerca de la antigua Dunhuang, en pleno desierto, en el lago del Bambú Flecha y las cataratas de Nuorilang, en Jiuzhaigou, y en un robledal otoñal de Mongolia Interior.
La ruta sigue la película desde el palacio del rey de Qin hasta la escuela de caligrafía, el duelo de las hojas doradas, el combate junto al lago y la cascada. Dos paradas no están ubicadas en el mapa: las fuentes nombran el lugar del desierto y el robledal solo por su zona.
