Korean cars getting big screen exposure

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Korean cars getting big screen exposure

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Skids, left background, and Mudflap, right background, are characters from the summer blockbuster ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.’ Both were designed by GM Daewo.

Did you see that snazzy hatchback in the summer blockbuster “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”? If you did, you might be surprised to know that Skids, the buck-toothed robot that can transform itself into a yellow-green compact, was developed by Korean automaker GM Daewoo.

Skids is just one of a number of Korean-made cars that have appeared in movies made by Hollywood studios in recent years.

But it is definitely the most visible. The three-door hatchback plays a major role as one of the Autobots fighting alongside the humans in an epic battle to save the world from the destructive Decepticons.

When Michael Bay, the film’s director, visited Seoul to promote the first installment of the Transformers trilogy in 2007 he said he would consider including a Korean vehicle in the sequel. Enter Skids.

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Skids is an Autobot that transforms into the compact Matiz, in the foreground. GM Daewoo plans to start selling the Matiz in September. Provided by the distributor

GM Daewoo plans to release the commercial version of the vehicle in September. It will be known as the Matiz in Korea and as the Chevrolet Beat overseas. When it was introduced as a concept car at the New York International Auto Show in 2007, it was called the Chevrolet Spark.

GM Daewoo also did the design for Skids’ twin brother Mudflap, aka the Chevrolet Trax, but the company has decided not to go through with the commercial release of that vehicle.

Before the Transformers movie came along, Korean cars had relatively small roles in films produced by Hollywood studios, and were often seen being crashed in action scenes.

But all of that is changing as Korean automakers begin to aggressively seek product placement contracts with Hollywood studios to raise their profiles and win bigger sales.

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Hyundai Motor’s EF Sonata appeared in the film ‘The Bourne Supremacy.’ Screen captured from the movies

One company that regularly puts its vehicles on the big screen is Hyundai Motor, the country’s leading automaker. The company’s product placement deals have earned its vehicles minor roles in major Hollywood movies.

In “Disturbia” (2007), a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” the protagonist’s neighbor is seen driving around in a Hyundai NF Sonata. In the sci-fi flick “War of the Worlds” (2005) a Hyundai Sonata is incinerated by a laser beam shot by an alien vessel. In “The Bourne Supremacy” (2002) a Hyundai EF Sonata is on screen for 10 minutes in the car chase that opens the movie.

But sometimes Korean cars still provide the fodder for jokes. In “Barbershop” (2002), about a small barbershop in Chicago, Ice Cube, who plays a barber, jokes that Rodney King - whose brutal beating by Los Angeles police officers, and the subsequent trial that acquitted the officers, sparked the LA riots in 1992 - should have been beaten up for driving a Hyundai.

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Daewoo’s Juliet appeared in the 2004 film ‘Taxi,’ starring Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah. Screen captured from the movies

In “Taxi” (2004), actor Jimmy Fallon, who plays a police officer trying to nab a group of bank robbers, gets help from a professional taxi driver played by Queen Latifah, who says about his Daewoo: “This is your unmarked car? A Daewoo? Man, I know people. I can’t be seen in this thing. Open the door. I don’t wanna get Daewoo on my hands.”

Korean cars may not have had a strong presence in Hollywood movies in the past, but that seems to be changing and we may soon be seeing other Korean cars lit up by the lights of Hollywood.


By Lee Ho-jeong
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