We totally missed Helio's big coming out party in LA this weekend at the Park Hyatt, but as we understand it was attended by none other than Tom Cruise (who carries a Hero) and ladyfriend Katie Holmes; apparently Helio's also making sure Steven Spielberg and, um, female Korean golfers like Pearl Siin have handsets with which to be seen around town. The Korean LPGA stuff is no coincidence though, Helio's using its half-Korean connections with SK Telecom to offer Korean Americans limited free calls to Korea, ringback tones, and games until June 30th. Perhaps more interesting still is according to Hankook Daily, T-Mobile -- who apparently currently carry about 35 percent of Korean Americans -- is supposedly pressuring shops to not vend Helio devices and service by pain of losing their T-Mo dealer license. We don't know if they'd so brashly engage in anything so anti-competitive, but SK, Helio, ET, the LGPA, and agent Hunt have their eyes on you, T-Mobile.

[Via Telecoms Korea]

Update: Helio called us on our Batphone Kickflip to let us know that the party was actually an SK Telecom event for the launch of Helio powered by SK Telecom, their Helio sub-brand targeting Korean Americans (ahh, it all makes sense). While Tom Cruise doesn't look Korean to us, we'll let it slide; we wouldn't kick him out of our party, either. Ok, well, maybe we would if he started doing that Risky Business shtick or something.