Film director Yoshida Kiju (formerly Yoshida Yoshishige) died on Thursday of pneumonia at age 89, Japanese media sources have revealed. Together with Oshima Nagisa and Shinoda Masahiro, Yoshida was part of the Shochiku-backed Nouvelle Vague of the late 1950s and early 1960s that had a major impact on Japanese cinema both then and in succeeding decades. A graduate of the elite University of Tokyo, where he studied French literature, Yoshida joined the Shochiku studio in 1955 and served as assistant director to Ozu Yasujiro and Kinoshita Keisuke. In 1960 he made his directorial debut with the youth drama “Good-for-Nothing.” This...