It is just before WWII, Kasumi Kenshiro hides as a quiet, absent-minded professor teaching literature at a small women's college in Tokyo. Once the 62nd Grand Master of Hokuto Shinken, "God Fist of the North Star," and known has Yan Wang, or "the King of Death," who preserved the peace in the "City of Devils." A fighter of thugs and drug dealers, Kasumi seeks anonymity and a quiet life until the death of his lover, and former brothers, forces him to return to Shanghai to fulfill his destiny and avenge the deaths of his associates.