## Introduction I will be exploring the genre of historical-political drama through the comparison of the 2017 South Korean film "A Taxi Driver" directed by Jang Hoon and the 2006 German film "The Lives of Others" directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. "A Taxi Driver" follows Kim, a taxi driver who drives a German journalist, Hinzpeter, to the city of **Gwangju** during the 1980 pro-democracy uprising. Initially uninterested in politics, Kim becomes emotionally involved as he witnesses students fighting against state violence. Together, he and Hinzpeter risk their lives to document the truth and deliver footage to the outside world. Set in East Berlin in 1984, "The Lives of Others" follows a Stati officer **Gerd Wiesler** who is assigned to conduct surveillance on **Georg Dreyman**, a celebrated playwright suspected of political subversion. As Wiesler listens in on Dreyman’s private life and relationships, he gradually becomes disillusioned with the oppressive system he serves and geins subtly undermining the investigation to protect Dreyman. The genre of histoical-political dramas often focus around a key historical event and dissect the eternal struggle between institutional control and individual conscience (Havel, 1978), Both films follow the genre convention and plot archetype of "individual transformation to fight against state oppression" (Holtmeier, 2016), and explored typical topics such as power, oppression, ethics, and media. Historical-political dramas often serve as the medium for shaping the collective memory of a nation, and its reflection on its past (Erll and Nunning, 2008). We will dive mroe deeply into the core of this genre throughout this analysis. The two films feature different cultural contexts -- one depicting the democratization of South Korea in the 1980s, especially the Gwangju Uprising, and the other featuring East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The two films have different focuses -- while "A Taxi Driver" frames political resistance as collective and emotionally charged, fighting against the state violence of visble force, the German film turns inward and focuses on more moral struggle of individuals. Korean cinema reviews its democratization period with righteous anger and passion (“On 1987: South Korean Cinema in the Era of Re-democratization,” 2020), with the aim to build its nationa lidentity through collective traumaand "melodramatic nationalism". On the other hand, the German cinema is more a form of nuanced _Erinnerungskultur_ -- the ways a society remembers, interprets, and publicly engages with its past (Kaes, 1989) -- and critically examines and ackowledges the blurred lines between victim and perpetrator. C'est parti. ## Body ### State vs Individual First and most importantly, both films portray the classic state vs individual opposition. This David-vs-Goliath opposition is common in historical-political dramas because, fundamentally, this asymetry of power -- individuals facing institutions with vastly superior power and authority -- is what creates tension. In "A Taxi Driver", the conflict between citizens and the millitary is staged on a collective scale, its peak being the Gwangju Uprising, where students and other ordinary citizens directly confront the millitary and are attacked with machines guns and tanks (Jae-eui, Sok-yong and Yong-ho, 2022). This reflects the oppressieve regime of 1980s South Korea Chun Doo-hwan (Saxer, 2020). The film's costume & sound design illustrates the opposition -- The military's uniform green attire visually emphasizes their monolithic, dehumanized power, their presence accompanied by the diegetic sounds of boots, tanks, and gunfire that dominate the soundscape. In contrast, the citizens' plain, simple clothing, often augmented by symbolic white headband, highlights their vulnerability and collective identity. Cinematography-wise, the civilians are framed in handheld, shaky compositions that emphasize their vulerability. In _The Lives of Others_, the struggle between state and individual is far more insidious, reflecting East Germany’s surveillance culture where power operated through secrecy rather than visible force (Jens Gieseke, 2014). The Stasi itself is embodied not by tanks or soldiers, but by endless bureaucratic corridors, sterile office rooms, and the constant mechanical hum of headphones and tape recorders, emphasized by the Mise-en-scène. Against this backdrop, Dreyman and his circle of artists become representatives of personal freedom and expression. The opposition can be reflected through the lighting design -- State-controlled spaces—the Stasi offices, interrogation rooms, and Wiesler’s sparse apartment—are dominated by a cold green-gray palette. By contrast, Dreyman’s apartment glows with soft, amber tones, filled with books, paintings, and music sheets. --- Now we have established the common theme of state-vs-individual. However, usually what push the characters to the fight is another typical plot in historical-political dramas -- individuals undergoing transformative journeys from apolitical bystanders to reluctant heroes. ### Moral Awakening At first, Kim is just an ordinary taxi driver -- a widower struggling to pay his bills, more concerned with putting his broken life together and taking care of his daughter than with any abstract political ideal. Initially, Kim embodies the “little man” who sees politics as something distant from survival (Shim, 2021). Yet as the journey unfolds, his perspective shifts dramatically. In Gwangju, he witnesses firsthand the brutality of the military crackdown—students bleeding in the streets, mothers wailing, and hospitals overflowing with wounded civilians. The mise-en-scène shifts from the bright, clean streets of Seoul to chaotic handheld shots of tear-gas clouds. These visual contrasts externalize his gradual moral awakening. Crucially, the camera repeatedly cuts to close-ups of Kim’s bewildered expression, drawing attention to his psychological transformation. In _The Lives of Others_, Wiesler’s transformation is rendered with far greater subtlety. Officer Wiesler is initially presented as an embodiment of the state apparatus, his rigid posture and emotionless demeanor captured in precise static shots. The diegetic sounds of rewinding tapes and typewriter keys dominate his world, underscoring how his identity is bound to bureaucratic surveillance. However, as he reads the novel mentioned by Dreyman listens to him playing the piano piece "Sonata for a Good Man", the **cinematography** subtly becomes more fluid and dynamic, circling around him, with more **close-ups** on his face, particularly his eyes, revealing his internal processing and preparing for the eventual transformation. His subsequent small acts of sabotage—removing evidence, hiding details—are filmed with restrained pacing and limited cues, underscoring resistance as an act of quiet defiance within a suffocating apparatus. ### The Role of Information & Media Finally, in historical-political dramas, information and media often plays an important role in catalyzing the state vs individual struggle and the moral awakening of individuals. This is fundamentally because according to Michel Foucault, "power and knowledge directly imply one another" (Discipline & Punish). Oftentimes in political dramas, information is weaponized -- the state uses media control to maintain power, while individuals use alternative channels to expose truth. Both films exemplify this genre convention from different angles. In _A Taxi Driver_, media serves as the narrative catalyst of the film --Hinzpeter's job to document and report the event is the main driving force of the plot. Within South Korea’s authoritarian context, state media suppresses the truth, hiding the existence of machine guns and civilian massacres (Stokes and Lee, 2016). Under this circumstance, Hinzpeter’s camera thus becomes the most powerful weapon, illustrated perfectly this scene that justaposes camera vs guns. Repeated shots of Hinzpeter urgently reloading film reels or protecting his camera emphasize the importance of authentic journalism (Jackson, 2020). Throughout the film, the editing sporadically switches from the real-life to the newsreel style diegetic footage via Hinzpeter's camera -- handheld, shaky, low-res, grainy. The **point-of-view shots** blurs the line between the narrative film and historical documentation and reinforces the idea that what is being witnessed is not merely a story, but a stark reality that has actually happened. In _The Lives of Others_, under the context of 24/7 surveillance, there is no privacy at all in Dreyman's life (_Totalitarianism on Screen: The Art and Politics of The Lives of Others_, 2014). The **cinematography** frequently utilizes **static**, objecive view to mimic the perspective of hidden cameras, often employing a slightly **distorted wide-angle or fisheye lens effect**, visually suggesting the omnipresent monitor of the Stasi. Within this environment, self-expression through writing and art becomes the primary medium of resistance. Like the camera, Dreyman wields the weapon of the written word -- His secret article on suicide in the East Germany, typed on a smuggled West German typewriter, directly critiques the regime’s censorship and culture of silence. The typewriter, concealed beneath the floorboards, becomes a potent **visual and narrative symbol**. ## Conclusion Taken together, _A Taxi Driver_ and _The Lives of Others_ demonstrate how historical-political dramas adapt shared conventions—state vs individual conflict, moral awakening, and the role of media—through distinct cultural contexts. Both films affirm the genre's core theme: ordinary individuals, through witnessing, undergo transformation to resist authoritarian control. Ultimately, historical-political dramas transform individual acts of courage into collective memory, ensuring that the eternal struggle between power and conscience remains alive. “Mainstream film [acts as] a vehicle of public memory, a form of mass-mediated memory that is genuinely public and collective.” — Robert Burgoyne, _The Hollywood Historical Film_.