diff --git a/mercurial/__init__.py b/mercurial/__init__.py
--- a/mercurial/__init__.py
+++ b/mercurial/__init__.py
@@ -171,8 +171,7 @@
                 r, c = t.start
                 l = (
                     b'; from mercurial.pycompat import '
-                    b'delattr, getattr, hasattr, setattr, '
-                    b'unicode\n'
+                    b'delattr, getattr, hasattr, setattr\n'
                 )
                 for u in tokenize.tokenize(io.BytesIO(l).readline):
                     if u.type in (tokenize.ENCODING, token.ENDMARKER):
@@ -221,7 +220,7 @@
     # ``replacetoken`` or any mechanism that changes semantics of module
     # loading is changed. Otherwise cached bytecode may get loaded without
     # the new transformation mechanisms applied.
-    BYTECODEHEADER = b'HG\x00\x0d'
+    BYTECODEHEADER = b'HG\x00\x0e'
 
     class hgloader(importlib.machinery.SourceFileLoader):
         """Custom module loader that transforms source code.
diff --git a/mercurial/templatefilters.py b/mercurial/templatefilters.py
--- a/mercurial/templatefilters.py
+++ b/mercurial/templatefilters.py
@@ -367,7 +367,7 @@
     """Any text. Returns the input text rendered as a sequence of
     XML entities.
     """
-    text = unicode(text, pycompat.sysstr(encoding.encoding), r'replace')
+    text = pycompat.unicode(text, pycompat.sysstr(encoding.encoding), r'replace')
     return b''.join([b'&#%d;' % ord(c) for c in text])