It depicts the occasionally intertwining lives of three groups of characters of different social backgrounds to provide a comprehensive picture of the contemporary society of Taiwan.
[1] The three groups of characters in the film belong to three distinct social classes, a middle-class couple, an indigenous family, and a handicapped man, who rescues discarded divine statuettes of all sorts.
The film portrays how they experience varying trials and pains due to the material or spiritual deficiencies caused by consumerism, and develop drastically different attitudes towards life, which in a way reflects Singing Chen’s observations and thoughts on contemporary Taiwan.
[5] Qing, a hand model, suffers from postpartum depression after her newborn baby was dead and seeks to find inner peace in Christianity, which frustrates her husband A-xiong, a busy architect.
Yellow Bull, who tries to save enough money to replace his old prosthetic leg, drives a truck carrying a Bodhisattva statue and other gods for religious events held by temples all over the island.
The sight of Yellow Bull’s shining Bodhisattva on the truck, which was out of gasoline due to the car accident, struck Biung as a sign of divine intervention and gave up his suicide plan.
Although the delay cost Yellow Bull dearly and would not be able to make enough money for his new prosthetic leg, he still considered himself lucky to have those peaches to share with Xian.
[6] According to director and screenwriter Singing Chen, the story of God Man Dog originally started with two separate scripts: one about urban middle-class life and the other about marginalized people.