Royston Tan is, in a word, fabulous. If you've seen his short films Cut and Hock Hiap Leong, as well as the music videos in his gangster feature 15, you would know that he has an extraordinary talent for staging lavish musical numbers.

Now that talent is given its fullest expression in his latest feature 881, Singapore's first musical in years. It combines evocative Hokkien songs with faux-glamorous costumes and choreography — providing Singapore's first feather-and-sequin-choked answer to Hollywood's Moulin Rouge.

881 is set in the world of getai entertainment, where performers entertain the dead and the living alike during the auspicious seventh lunar month. Relative newcomers Mindee Ong and Yeo Yann Yann play two ordinary girls who grow up dreaming of becoming the most popular and glamorous getai singers on the island — if only to escape the humdrum reality of their lives.

Expressing themselves in song-and-dance every time they hit an emotional high or low, 881 depicts their real and imagined worlds through fairly elaborate musical numbers. It combines humour, drama and music to create a film that could well be the most satisfying and entertaining Royston Tan work ever.

If you catch only one film this National Day weekend, make it 881.