Loved this movie and bought the DVD when it first came out. Hirokazu Koreeda is also my #1 favorite current director in the world right now.
I'll pretty much see anything he makes.
Strangely there is this small theater in the middle of nowhere here that plays every single one of his movies when they're released.
This is around in an area where almost zero subtitled movies are ever played. I think the owner must really like his movies or something!
My favorites movies from him are I Wish, Nobody Knows and Like Father, Like Son. A few of his films I could barely finish because I found them very boring somehow (After Life and Hana).
You might also like the films of Yuya Ishii. My favorites are Sawako Decides and Mitsuko Delivers. The trailers for those are pretty terrible though. The Great Passage is supposed to be his best film. The company "Third Window Films" has some good releases. DVDs are so much cheaper in the UK than the USA it seems! Yes, I still buy DVDs if I can't find the movie on a streaming service. It's too bad they're PAL format and region locked.
Have you heard of Shunji Iwai? His film "Swallowtail Butterfly" is one of the best films ever made and severely underrated. At the 1997 Japanese Academy Awards it got nominated for 7 awards. The singer Chara got nominated too and I don't believe she even had any acting experience before the movie. I'd suggest watching it if you can.
BTW I was just thinking you may like the films of Edward Yang too. Try "Yi Yi", which is pretty amazing but sort of slow.
His movies used to be so much harder to find. Criterion released Yi Yi on blu-ray I think.
One more suggestion.. "Peppermint Candy". That's the south korean film that got me hooked on films from that country.
It's directed by Lee Chang-Dong.