Goodbye, Dragon Inn ending explained

What happens

The film on screen ends, the few remaining viewers leave, and the theatre empties while the rain keeps falling. The staff step out into the night, and the building is left to its ghosts. Nothing is explained or resolved.

The last image

The vacated hall, with its empty seats, is left to the rain and the building's ghosts.

What it says

The empty hall is a farewell, not a conclusion. The film mourns cinema as a shared place: when the audience, the building and the era are gone, only memory remains. It ends on absence because that absence is what it is about.