A global nuclear war has turned most of Earth into a contaminated wasteland, with humanity's survivors now fighting over the few uncontaminated food and water supplies still remaining.

Raoh challenges Ryuken's decision to choose Ken as the Hokuto Shinken successor over him and kills him, proclaiming he will become the ruler of the new world.

Before he dies a gruesome death, Jagi reveals that he was the one who convinced Shin to betray Ken and that he is now living with Yuria in his stronghold, the city of Southern Cross.

Elsewhere, Raoh, now a conqueror known as Ken-oh (King of Fists), has amassed a huge army, expanding his domain by defeating rival warlords and begins heading to Southern Cross.

After Rei dies, Kenshiro and Raoh unleash their full fighting aura to battle each other, destroying most of Cassandra in the process and leaving both substantially injured.

Unlike the theatrical version, in which Kenshiro falls unconscious during the final battle, the revised ending has both fighters still standing when they're about to deliver their mutual finishing blows before they're interrupted by Lin.

Because the revised ending was recorded on a different film stock, it did not undergo the remastering process, resulting in a drop in video quality when the scene is played.

The English script, written by Tom Wyner, is not a direct translation of the Japanese original, resulting in drastic plot differences between the two versions (such as the explanation for Airi's blindness and the cause of Shin's death).

It also features a scene in which Dogmaster Galf (a minor villain from the manga who makes a cameo in the movie leading Raoh's march with a megaphone) crushes the head of a chanter with his bare hands.

The English dub version of the movie was released two years after Viz Communications' short-lived first translation of the manga, and received mixed reviews.

Upon release, Richard Harrington of The Washington Post criticized the violent nature of the movie and quality of the animation, saying that "watching it you will feel as comfortable as a hemophiliac in a razor blade factory".

[6] Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote that "in its carelessly translated and poorly dubbed English adaptation, the characters express themselves in diction so stiff that they seem ludicrously prissy".