The promotional material of 2.0 Photo: IC

The promotional material of 2.0 Photo: IC

After altering its original release date of July 12 to avoid competition with other summer films, Bollywood sci-fi blockbuster 2.0 finally hit Chinese mainland theaters on Friday.

The film made is estimated to make 20 million yuan ($2.8 million) over its opening weekend.

Originally released in India on November 29, 2018, the film, a sequel to 2010's Endhiran, follows Dr Vaseegaran (Rajinikanth) and his android assistant Nila (Amy Jackson) after they are called in for help when mobile phones start mysteriously flying out of the hands of people in the Indian city of Chennai. Vaseegaran summons his trusted robot Chitti (also played by Rajinikanth) to ward off the bird-based supernatural powers of Pakshi Rajan (Akshay Kumar).

The film earned $4.15 million in India and 9.28 million yuan ($1.3 million) in its first showing day.

On Chinese media view site Douban, 2.0 holds a 5.7/10 from more than 4,200 reviews.

Many reviewers noted they were attracted to the new film since they had seen the previous one in the series.

"Except several scenes of singing and dancing that I wanted to skip, all the commercial elements of the film including the sci-fi, chases, action, explosions and beautiful actresses are all present," said netizen Yingzi de yingzi.

While positive reviews hailed the imagination of Indian sci-fi films as outstripping Chinese films in the genre, one-third of the reviews have given it low scores.

"I may throw up if I see too many of these types of terrible films," posted netizen Dafeng Qixi, giving the film a 2/10.

Other complaints centered around the film's more than two-hour runtime.