Manchurian Candidate

In the introduction of the film Manchurian Candidate, Staff Sergeant asks the scout his opinion and then won't follow it. This is showing power over his soldiers. Because of this decision by the Staff Sergeant, Generals had to stand and salute him when he got back to the States. This is reversal of power; Staff Sergeant should be the lower person of the power and be the one initiating the salute.

In the Major's dream they make a correlation of the Staff Sergeant's mother and a Korean doctor and that character having complete control over everyone in the dream, even getting the person getting strangled to sit there, cooperate and be good, the person simply responds with "yes ma'am." The persons over the Major think that his dream is simply from 18 straight months in a war zone. He is subconsciously blaming the Staff Sergeant for the death of a man when he was able to save the rest. Al's dream Raymond is ordered to shoot their "mascot" through the forehead. The rest of the group either helps by handing over their gun, moving out of the way, or sitting there and watching. Everyone in the group is under the control of the Korean government, which America is at war with.

Through the whole movie Raymond's mother is trying to gain all the United States power, even using her children to achieve this. She uses Raymond as the assassin to kill the Presidential Nominee to get her husband to be the president allowing her to control over the entire United States, for the company she is working for. She doesn't realize the hatred Raymond has for her after killing the woman he loved. Raymond freed his mind at the end of the movie by killing his drunk step-father, then his mother and finally himself.