diff --git a/hgext/win32mbcs.py b/hgext/win32mbcs.py
--- a/hgext/win32mbcs.py
+++ b/hgext/win32mbcs.py
@@ -127,7 +127,7 @@
                          " %s encoding\n") % (_encoding))
 
 def wrapper(func, args, kwds):
-    return basewrapper(func, unicode, encode, decode, args, kwds)
+    return basewrapper(func, type(u''), encode, decode, args, kwds)
 
 
 def reversewrapper(func, args, kwds):