Promised Land exemplifies the central importance of science fiction to Cheung’s work. At the centre of the image stands the iconographic figure of pre-dawn man, borrowed from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Cheung explains: “Pre-dawn man has understood the power of violence and by exerting it; it can control the ‘pool of life’ and secure survival for his tribe.” The artist’s reference to this prehistoric domination as well as filmography occurs within a Technicolor landscape, suggesting that the evolution of pre-dawn to space age mankind is intertwined with violence.