Garbage Ending

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The girl seemingly moved up the mafia ranks.

Louie was taking orders from her. Which is why when Ghost Dog told him he would be running his own crew now because no one was left, he responded along the lines of "it's not that simple".

Dying for one's master or in battle is a high honor for a samurai.

How can the ending not make any sense? Did you watch the beginning of the movie? See the first quote from Ghost Dog's book, the one that talks that being effectively dead and constantly preparing for one's death is the way of Samurai. This was a huge hint. In fact, the quote was just for the 'unwashed' western masses. Anyone familiar with the history of Japan, a country with possibly the most ritualized culture of suicide at least in the past, would know that a true Samurai is expected to commit a suicide at his master's wish at any moment. Frankly, the quotes of Ghost Dog's book give away pretty much all of meaning there is to this movie.

The master (Louie) certainly needed Ghost Dog dead once mob bosses were killed. This was the only way for Louie himself to stay alive if he was to continue with the same mob, much of which seemed like a bunch of in-laws and other relatives. The mob clearly continued to exist, as there was still Vargo's daughter left, the driver, and possibly other characters. In my view, we haven't seen all of the mob. In fact, what we have seen may have been just a branch of a bigger mob. With the clear realization of this, Ghost Dog gave all of his valuables to Raymond (the ice cream truck guy), took Raymond's gun away, unloaded his own, and gave up himself to the master. The girl reads the last book quote in the film, the one about the importance of the end to all things. The end. Very well done IMO.

Any sort of "happy end" would have destroyed this movie.

Garbage film altogether. A perfect example of a film that's sole purpose is to intermingle so called subtleties to try and appear brilliant. Absolutely nothing was hard to understand or pick up even if you're only halfway paying attention. Jarmusch failed hard on this film.