I looked it up, they're less regulated in at least Korea because they're considered cosmetic and not drugs so they don't have to go through the much higher rigorous testing that the US FDA does.

That is to not to say they aren't safe, it just means that the US FDA considers it the same level as aspirin or some other OTC, whereas the Korean FDA considers them the same level as like food or something. So in Korea, the newer, more innovative products can get out quicker because the testing is not as extensive. Figure as long as you're using something that's been on the market for a while, you're good as any crazy hives warnings would've popped up already

An interesting article on the topic. Basically the FDA is lazy about approving new sunscreen chemicals so we're stuck with mediocre stuff compared to Europe and Asia.

They feel lighter and are often more gel-based as opposed to cream based. In my experience they are also much cheaper

tl;dr fda overregulates and doesn't bother approving new sunscreen stuff so the asian sunscreens are ""newer""