Plot hole: The Emir wants to test Shaft's ability to resist the desert, since he'll have to cross it in his trip, and so sets him up for a test; a room filled with sand, burning hot from dozens of lamps on the ceiling, that heat it all up to 110F. And they want him to walk for 8 hours in that room. But Shaft finds another solution; he digs a hole in the sand and lies in it. Which impresses the Emir greatly, so he shuts off the lamps and tells him he passed the test. How in the world digging a shallow bed and lying down in burning hot sand, with his head sticking out fully exposed, is any indication of being able to cross the desert, let alone survive it for 8 hours? He would have gotten a terrible sunburn with his head exposed as his body cooks in a sauna, and he is not an inch closer to getting to the other side of the imaginary desert.
Revealing mistake: It's quite common in movies of the era, especially slashers and horror movies who look to get some particular scenic effect, to feature blood with unrealistic color and look, in particular a bright red. This movie though has some of the worst fake blood ever in both color and texture; when Kopo gets clobbered protecting Shaft it really looks like someone squished a tomato on his head, and when Shaft gets bitten, ketchup-like goop oozes from the actor's teeth.
Revealing mistake: At the end of the movie, the French inspector Cusset (Jacques Marin in his typical role) looks at the mess Shaft made. With a single glance he's able to encompass all the different dead bodies on the large property Shaft covered with his car mowing them down at 60 mph, which already is impressive. Some of the bodies lie down next to each other when they were murdered at distance. Deserving special mention is the second guy Shaft trampled with his car though, with the actor having his hands hidden in the jacket sleeves to suggest that Shaft crushed them under the car tires. (01:50:25)
Continuity mistake: After leaving behind his exploded car, Shaft is looking for bad guys to frag, and he finds one he mows down with the machine gun. The guy dies with the back of his jacket flipping quite noticeably, leaving a big turquoise area exposed. When Richard Roundtree runs past his sorry carcass, the jacket is showing much less azure flap. (01:45:45)
Continuity mistake: The first baddie Shaft runs over with the car as he rushes Castle Montfort falls in two different ways; the body is sideways and the stuntman has a much bigger leap in the first shot. Furthermore, he falls with the head tilted towards the left but in the close-up we see his skull cracked at the right orbital socket. (01:44:45)
Revealing mistake: Shaft and Aleme are looking through different castles in a book. Every page starts with the name of a castle, but the book used as basis for the prop is a french textbook by Jean Secret, Le Perigord, which talks about a region (the modern Dordogne, you can read that specific name and many others recognizable as part of that zone when the camera lingers on the page) which is in the south of the country; definitely not featuring a castle "14 kilometers from Paris" as the prop text inlay says nor is a "one castle every other page" tourist guide-style of book. (01:43:20)
Continuity mistake: The mafioso who takes forever before shooting Shaft with his Star Z-45 machine gun from the top of the stairs, falls off said stairs in different spots according to the camera angle. He also gives himself quite the noticeable push with his hand to be able to get past the railing. (01:40:00)
Continuity mistake: Shaft grabs Perreau, roughs him up a little in the nearby doorway for a few seconds, and then he is back on the street. Between the two streetviews there's a striking difference in lighting; when Perreau arrived in his little car and stopped before Shaft a big part of the wall had shadows; more light appeared already as Jacques Herlin came out of the car, while when Shaft takes over the whole wall is bathed in sunlight. (01:38:20)
Continuity mistake: Pushed on the bed, Oyo suddenly is bleeding from the left eye, an injury he did not have before and with the bleeding appearing between shots (being hit in the back and shoulder, it's not exactly a very logical wound to have, either). You can also see his fist on the bed next to a bag, but at the cut the arm changed position. (01:33:35)
Continuity mistake: Oyo jumps from the bed onto one of the mobsters, and they begin wrestling. The other mobster hits him in the back of the head with the pistol. Between these two shots there's an obvious continuity error as the bearded goon has his arm over Oyo's upper arm, while in the following shot he has an underhook. (01:33:30)
Continuity mistake: The truck from "Dupont" arrived in Paris and the human content can get off. There is one view from inside the building; look at the extra with a reddish sweater. He is inside, but also a few seconds later he is one of those people who still have to walk the path between truck and door with Shaft. (01:28:45)
Continuity mistake: Throughout the bedroom scene with Amafi's girl doing the most explicit 'flirting' possible, Shaft casts his shadow on the different walls in variable directions depending on the camera angle (sometimes his shadow is on the door, sometimes not, etc). Same for Neda Arneric when is leaning against the door inquiring about the size of his "phallus"; the length of her shadow changes when the camera angle changes. (01:18:50)
Continuity mistake: When Amafi's sex kitten throws herself at Shaft in her room, she gets up from bed towards a corner to turn off the recorder. A mirror appears all of a sudden; it was removed in the previous shot (probably the angle would have gotten the camera in frame and they chose the easy way to eliminate that risk). (01:20:25)
Continuity mistake: The cameleer gets paid for his 'delivery' by the ship captain. He turns around and the pocket flap on the chest of the captain, that closed in the previous shot, is open again. In the same shot the man walks downstairs to part ways with Shaft, and then between shots the people on the deck are differently placed and engaged. (01:14:10)
Factual error: The document Shaft checks out when he kills the bus assassin is not a passport, but a driving license. It's also missing the signature, and the name of the city (Sardinia's capital city) is misspelled as Caliari instead of Cagliari; even worse, a scribbled line where the issue date should be. An official document like it's supposed to be generally had all the information typed and not handwritten, but if it were handwritten, it needed to be in block letters, not the way it is in the movie, in longhand and with such awful penmanship. (00:40:35)
Continuity mistake: Escaping the men after him, Shaft gets away from the brothel and ends up in a market. He hops over a vegetable stand and is followed within literally 2 seconds by a couple of the villains. But in the wide shot when he entered the market, the baddies were nowhere in sight. They couldn't have filled a gap this wide so quickly. (01:11:10)
Continuity mistake: When Shaft grabs the villain with the Luger who is standing clueless on some scaffolding, the person has the right foot/left foot / right foot again sticking out more than the other, depends from the angle. He is also shown falling favouring the left side, but there he is dropping on his right just the shot later. (00:57:45)
Continuity mistake: In the spirited fight between the protagonist and the dog-killing slave driver, the dastardly villain tries to bite Shaft, but he is able to pull out and clobbers the guy in the back of the head with all his might. In this wide shot you can spot in the audience as they cheer a guy with an afro and long scarf and the guy with darkest shirt (they both are quite characteristic). When the villain gets up only to be flogged by Shaft and yelp in impressive fashion, the two aforementioned guys are side to side cheering while they were distant earlier. (00:54:05)
Continuity mistake: After the slave driver killed his dog, Shaft goes full John Wick on him and it's stick fight time. In a surprising editing choice, the fight gets to the recruiter, you can see him getting knocked slightly off balance as Shaft pushes his opponent against the table, but then an anticlimactic close-up of the man is shown, with him looking into space as if he was checking out a fight happening meters away from him and not quite literally under his nose. After the completely incongruous close-up, in the next shot he's even seen pushing them off the table. (00:52:45)
Continuity mistake: Several men are in line for the 'job offer' by the slavers; at the bottom of the line in the shot when the recruiter is banging his pouch on the table, there's a guy with a shirt in horizontal beige/orange stripes and a long scarf. The same guy is shown entering the yard where the recruitment takes place only later, preceding Shaft and Kopo. (00:51:40)
