Understanding the ending (spoilers)

I'm pretty sure the ending was a drug hallucination, otherwise it would seem like a too-pat happy ending, with Larissa not being killed, the "contract" for her comic, all that cash and everyone hanging out happy while she sketches away.

I really enjoyed this movie.

i was confused as well, my friends insisted that the basic plot of the story was real but she fabricated the dramatic events.

but the ending seems like the fakest thing in the whole movie

Here is my take on the story. All events at the ending happened. It was a genuine great happy ending. It dispelled all the fright, mystery, and dark evilness of Angela's fantastic experience up to that point. The party at the surreal house was not really a terribly evil place; it was merely some Japanese businessman inviting (and paying for) girls to liven up a party. In a previous party where Larissa was stabbed, that event was accidental. And apparently the host, Kruilman, tried his best to help Larrisa by keeping her in the house to slowly recover. The story was developed intentionally to create a mystical giant evil cover-up of what happened at the first party. But in the end, it went to show that: yes, there might had been too much alcohol flowing around, and yes, the businessmen were enjoying the company of "call girls", but these businessmen were not the sinister underworld that kidnapped young girls deliberately and murdering them.

The flow of the story portrayed a very imaginary young girl (Angela) who bravely and naively came to a foreign country which she knew little of. And her only safe retreat to cope with this mysterious world was pouring her energy into her comic drawings. Drawing comics was to her the same expressive channel as writing a diary. She put her fear, observation, speculation, and wild imagination into events that happened around her.

My wife and I just saw TSG and enjoyed it a lot. But like most, we are unsure of the ending also. She's more a "pessimist" and I am more an "optimist", and yet we both feel that the ending was indeed a set-up to cover for murder (or at least an accidental homicide). Why would Angela be forced to get high before introducing her to the view of Larissa? Why not just show her what's happening? Perhaps because in a drugged state it is easier to somehow deceive her with an alternative Larissa? In any case, an interesting film, with an intriguing look at Tokyo. And my, is Chloe Winkel not an absolutely provocative and beautiful woman!

I'm guessing the director chose to have this ending wide open, but this is my take on it:

I don't think any of it happened. I think Angela is an artist with a vivid imagination, and the whole story is just something she devised. In the final scene when she is sketching Yamamoto while looking at him out the window, it looks like the other two people in the garden might be two of the girls in the story (maybe Larissa or Monica). It's hard to tell. Maybe this is a case of "Wizard of Oz" where all the people she knows end up in the story. Instead of a wicked witch, we have a wicked japanese businessman. Her ending, if it were real, does seem a little too far-fetched.

"Hi, I'm a Japanese businessman who just happens to be in the business of signing artists and I also just happen to have a fondness for blondes who all happen to work in the same club and happen to have been offered the whole Japanese trip through some random DJ (atleast that's true of Monica, if not the others) who also happens to be a buddy of mine. Oh, and don't worry about that girl you stabbed sweetie; we'll let you believe she's dead, but she's just chillin' at my place livin' the good life while you bunk 5 deep in a tiny apartment selling yourselves to get by."

I don't believe it for a second. My money is on the Dorothy story, and she definitely never left Kansas.

After thinking this through for a bit I decided that the majority of the story is fabricated. It is real up until Yamamoto throws the rock. I beleive that splash signifies the breaking point. Everything from there on is in Angela's imagination. This explains the strange and sappy ending. She gets a contract for her drawing, Larissa is fine, etc. Then she snaps back to reality. She is finishing up the story in her room at home in Germany and Yamoto, whom she has since become close with, is in the back. When she is drawing the murder of Larissa for the first time she draws several very specific japanese men in attendance. When she actually goes to the house these same men are there. To me this is as good of proof as any. She couldn't have known what they would look like until she had been there, thus it was in her imagination all along.

On the whole an enjoyable film, loved the way it was shot, who was the DP? Does anyone know what it was shot on?

My take on the ending was she imagined and drew the entire story. A story staring her friend Yamamoto and the other girls in the yard. And after this bout of intense creativity, she did what a lot of teenage girls would do. She danced, listening to a discman, over the closing credits.

I may be wrong, and I will see it again to be sure. Having seen the end, the scene resulting in her flying to Japan may be easier to pick as fact or fantasy.

On the whole, it is a beguiling film. Beautifully understated. Rarely do I watch something and then immediately plan to see it again. Soon.