The Trembling Sunrise explores the shifting relationship between civilization and the environment. Nature is presented as both succumbing to human recklessness and preparing to unleash its wrath in the form of an impending natural disaster. In financial jargon, a 'stag' is an investor who buys and sells shares rapidly to make a quick profit.

Cheung refers to Trembling Sunrise as a "triple disaster" painting: made in 2011, on the eve of the historic Japanese tsunami, it depicts a flooded wasteland (prophetically referencing future ecological crises), the trembling edifices of buildings affected by the earthquake in Japan which followed the tsunami, and finally, the radioactive glow in the background of the nuclear power plants radiation leak following the two environmental disasters. The stag is an archetype of nature, the king of the forest, shown here in a moment between life and death, fall and recover.