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As the Hayao Miyazaki Complete Collection arrives on Blu-ray, we look at the legendary animator's rise to international success...

When Hayao Miyazaki stepped into a Tokyo conference room and announced his retirement from feature filmmaking on the 6th September 2013, it marked the end of a career which stretched back to the early 1960s. Through such films as My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle, Miyazaki entertained and beguiled a global audience with his lighter-than-air storytelling and captivating characters. Somehow, his films managed to be both universal and deeply personal.

Miyazaki's work is brought together for the first time in The Hayao Miyazaki Collection, which serves as lasting and handsomely-presented tribute to the 11 films he made between 1979 and 2013. But how did Miyazaki, born to a well-to-do family on the 5th January 1941, become one of the most respected animators in Japan?

Miyazaki grew up in the post-war comics boom led by the father of manga,...

Review by Sam Moffitt

I grew up a monster kid in the 1960s. I tried to watch any movie with Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Lon Chaney or Peter Lorre, whether the movie was horror or not, I loved all these actors. But Bela Lugosi has always had a special place in my heart and I’ve made every effort to see all his films. Phantom ship was one title that has eluded me for years, until now.

Courtesy of Image Entertainment and Netflix I finally caught up with Phantom Ship, also known as The Mystery of The Mary Celeste. Was it worth the wait and worth seeing? Yes and no, depending on how you feel about Lugosi. This is one film that allowed Lugosi room to move and create a character not really related to horror movies and it show cases just how good an actor he really was.