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)
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)
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)
Continuity mistake: The first time the slaver is setting his table up in the village to recruit workers, he is sitting down and starting to open the bag. Amazingly enough, the next shot has him just arriving from out of frame and banging the same bag on that table to call for attention. He'll sit down in another shot later, when Shaft's dog jumps in the line. (00:51:35)
Continuity mistake: In the village of Maiberra, two baddies dismount from a truck. You can see by the truck a series of women sitting against the wall. Shaft and his bodyguard arrive mere seconds after, but the natural light changed (look at the shadows on the wall), some women left and the curtain has been moved. (00:51:15)
Continuity mistake: Kopo talks to the "district headman" and turns his heels followed by Shaft. To the right of the venerable man you can see three men, two of them with long spears in hand. In the reverse shot when Kopo begins to explain the situation to Shaft, the three guys are chilling with the spears no longer in their hands, the one in the middle turned in the opposite direction (away from Shaft) than before. (00:49:10)
Continuity mistake: After leaving his belle, Shaft meets a man in the plains (Kopo, he says later). When that man lowers his stick, in the first shot (from distance) he's doing it simply letting the left hand go off it, but in the view with the camera right behind him, his motion is repeated more slowly and accompanying the stick with that hand for a longer period. (00:47:10)
Continuity mistake: In his secret mission, Shaft keeps meeting assassins perfectly tipped about his position. Once he murders the one on the bus elbowing him in the windpipe (which, as we know, causes instant silent death) he grabs his wallet. He puts it in his left hand, but as he pushes back the ex-assassin in order get up his right arm is in a different position and is now the one holding the wallet. (00:38:55)
