--- mc-4.6.1-pre2b/src/help.c
+++ mc-4.6.1-pre2b/src/help.c
@@ -447,8 +447,22 @@
 #else
 			SLsmg_draw_object (h->y + line + 2, h->x + col + 2, c);
 #endif
+		} else {
+#ifdef UTF8
+		if (SLsmg_Is_Unicode) {
+		    int len;
+		    mbstate_t mbs;
+                   wchar_t wc;
+		    memset (&mbs, 0, sizeof (mbs));
+		    len = mbrtowc(&wc, p, MB_CUR_MAX, &mbs);
+		    if (len <= 0) len = 1; /* skip broken multibyte chars */
+
+            	    SLsmg_write_nwchars(&wc, 1);
+		    p += len - 1;
 		} else
+#endif
 		    addch (c);
+		}
 		col++;
 		break;
 	    }
@@ -771,6 +785,12 @@
 	message (1, MSG_ERROR, _(" Cannot open file %s \n %s "), filename ? filename : hlpfile,
 		 unix_error_string (errno));
     }
+    else
+    {
+	char *conv = utf8_to_local(data);
+	g_free(data);
+	data = conv;
+    }
 
     if (!filename)
 	g_free (hlpfile);
--- mc-4.6.1-pre2b/src/util.h
+++ mc-4.6.1-pre2b/src/util.h
@@ -97,6 +97,8 @@
 int mbstrlen (const char *);
 wchar_t *mbstr_to_wchar (const char *);
 char *wchar_to_mbstr (const wchar_t *);
+char *utf8_to_local(char *str);
+
 
 #define MAX_I18NTIMELENGTH 14
 #define MIN_I18NTIMELENGTH 10