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: 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: 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 killing Marco Sassari, Shaft goes back to the corpse of Kopo. He finds him lying down with his arms close to the body and a blood splatter all over the mouth and right side of the shirt. But he died with the arms spread and no blood from his mouth. (00:56:55 - 00:59:15)
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: Shaft slips out of the prostitute's room as he hears the clamor downstairs. He slides under the railing; his right hand holds the stick all the way at the top in the second shot, in contrast with the position in the previous. (01:10:15)
Continuity mistake: Shaft escapes from the brothel jumping out of a window. He is facing opposite directions in the two shots when it happens (he jumps facing the street and lands facing the building). (01:10:40)
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: In the coastal town, Shaft gets bitten by Ziba to the point of bleeding the thick red goop that passes off as blood in the movie. However he is perfectly unharmed in the following scene. (01:12:30)
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: 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: While Shaft and the girl are lowering the boat, a bad guy with a knife approaches. He has an almost intact cigarette in mouth, which burns down an inch in between shots between that time and when he does his bowling-like throw and dies. (01:25:05)
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: 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: 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: 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: When the protagonist dodges the machine gun fire in Amafi's office building, the desk in front of him has a lamp on it in the frontal views, but with the camera placed behind Shaft there is no lamp. (01:39:55)
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: When Aleme reads from the book about castles, there's an obvious difference between the close-ups (right hand moving on the page) and the wider shots (she holds the page, then she is moving the left hand on it instead of the right). (01:43:20)
