lib/PublicInbox/ViewVCS.pm | 8 +++++---
 t/solver_git.t             | 7 ++++++-

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/ViewVCS.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/ViewVCS.pm
index 96883f6ccbda5fe15c25b9e0463ae8bae7f3573d..19d34092a28fd3ecec3f66510069f7b92b4b88a9 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/ViewVCS.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/ViewVCS.pm
@@ -144,7 +144,7 @@
 <b>$s</b>\n
 EOM
 	$ctx->zmore($bdy);
-	open $fh, '<', "$tmp/p" or die "open $tmp/p: $!";
+	open $fh, '<:utf8', "$tmp/p" or die "open $tmp/p: $!";
 	if (-s $fh > $MAX_SIZE) {
 		$ctx->zmore("---\n patch is too large to show\n");
 	} else { # prepare flush_diff:
@@ -171,8 +171,10 @@ 	# patch-id needs two passes, and we use the initial show to ensure
 	# a patch embedded inside the commit message body doesn't get fed
 	# to patch-id:
 	my $cmd = [ '/bin/sh', '-c',
-		"git show '$SHOW_FMT' -z --no-notes --no-patch $oid >h && ".
-		"git show --pretty=format:%n -M --stat -p $oid >p && ".
+		"git show --encoding=UTF-8 '$SHOW_FMT'".
+		" -z --no-notes --no-patch $oid >h && ".
+		'git show --encoding=UTF-8 --pretty=format:%n -M'.
+		" --stat -p $oid >p && ".
 		"git patch-id --stable <p" ];
 	my $xenv = { GIT_DIR => $git->{git_dir} };
 	my $tmp = File::Temp->newdir("show-$oid-XXXX", TMPDIR => 1);
diff --git a/t/solver_git.t b/t/solver_git.t
index 1baa012b1abeb56a77c98519e8a27b08697aafe9..5c7bfa286c872dd7408c4cddfff780128fa1f500 100644
--- a/t/solver_git.t
+++ b/t/solver_git.t
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 #!perl -w
-# Copyright (C) 2019-2021 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
+# Copyright (C)  all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
 # License: AGPL-3.0+ <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>
 use strict;
 use v5.10.1;
@@ -294,6 +294,11 @@ 			is($res->code, 200, "$label raw binary download");
 			is($res->content, "\0" x $size,
 				"$label content matches");
 		}
+		my $utf8 = 'e022d3377fd2c50fd9931bf96394728958a90bf3';
+		$res = $cb->(GET("/$name/$utf8/s/"));
+		is($res->code, 200, 'shows commit w/ utf8.eml');
+		like($res->content, qr/El&#233;anor/,
+				'UTF-8 commit shown properly');
 	};
 	test_psgi(sub { $www->call(@_) }, $client);
 	SKIP: {