I actually wrote a ton about the KMT splinter that never evacuated to Taiwan and ended up continuing their own war against the Communists through insurgent activities from Burma.

While in Burma, as funding from their allies in Taiwan dried up, they turned to alternative methods to keeping up the war as well as keeping them fed. Their answer was leveraging the region and moving into the drug trade.

They did very well for themselves, at least until Burma kicked them out.

They would go on to move into Laos and then Thailand.

So long story short, YES a unit of KMT soldiers was heavily involved in the drug trade. They become one of the major players in the area.

If you'd like more information, feel free to ask. I'm currently at work so my responses maybe slow but they will arrive eventually!

Not an direct answer but the film was based off of an original article in New York Magazine titled "The Return of Superfly" by Mark Jacobson.

To the best of my recollection, he had done a lot of original research and spent a good deal of time with Frank Lucas in the process.

I've spent a fair amount of time around Mark and he's quite an accessible person. Direct follow up from the original researcher could provide more detailed specifics to any number of related questions.

He's written a lot of other interesting and oddly disparate things in his career as well.

Vietnam had its own Kuomintang inspired group that might shed more light on this, especially since Vietnam was the largest and most populous part of French Indochina at the time. It was called Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, literally the same word translated, and they had many connections - ideological, physical, with the Chinese Kuomintang. You could try using this name in your search for more Indochinese Kuomintang connections.

Here is the flag. It's still used by some expatriate groups who agitate for non Communist Party rule under this name. They even have a website. In many ways it is similar to Chinese expatriates who support the Chinese Kuomintang, so I would not be surprised if they cooperated with each other during the times when Frank Lucas is there. Drug smuggling is often a part of fundraising for these sorts of landless rebels.